LSU coaching search: Josh Pate provides latest on Tigers' new alignment, Lane Kiffin and timing

The LSU coaching search has started to gain some clarity, at least in terms of who will be calling the shots. The Tigers now have a new permanent president and a new permanent athletics director.

That could go a long way toward helping LSU land the target it wants. College football analyst Josh Pate hit on the word everyone’s going to use when describing the search now: alignment.

“Alignment has been a buzzword down in Baton Rouge. Well, we’ve got a new president on board. Now this guy’s name is Wade Rousse. Also, athletic director Verge Ausberry, he is now permanent. Rip the interim tag off,” Pate said on Tuesday’s episode of Josh Pate’s College Football Show. “Verge has been there forever. He’s been there since the colors were actually decided on being purple and gold. So we’ve got people that know LSU. And we’ve got alignment.”

What does that mean for the search? Well, that remains to be seen.

First, Pate wanted to clear the air on one candidate who quickly became rumored in the past 48 hours. That was former Alabama coach Nick Saban, who of course also once coached at LSU.

“It’s not going to be Nick Saban,” Pate said. “Last night my phone blew up with matters it never should have been blowing up in reference to. However, I understand how the message board culture works. So I had to spend a solid seven and a half minutes of my evening last night confirming Saban’s not getting back into coaching and he’s not going back to LSU. I accomplished that pretty quickly and pretty definitively.”

From there, Pate continued to harp on one of the reported top candidates for LSU. That’s Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin.

“The Lane Kiffin name is out there,” Pate said. “The Lane Kiffin name, it’s funny because no decision is ready to be made. Doesn’t matter if he doesn’t want to come or he does want to come, there’s just no decision to be had right now, and I’m going to tell you why. Because Lane Kiffin is in the middle of a playoff run right now.

“So I know there’s been some rumors floating around that he was very turned off by the political theater that we all saw last week. Of course he was turned off by that. That’s not rumor, it’s fact. Who’s turned on by that? LSU fans hated it. Like who would possibly be turned on? That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. I repeat: It’s Nov. 4.”

In other words, there’s a long way to go before a coach is eventually hired. At the bare minimum, you figure it’s pretty close to a month before anything would happen.

That bad PR that was generated when Governor Jeff Landry was so vocal? That could all disappear by the time the coaching search really starts to heat up.

“So if the governor keeps his mouth shut publicly about this you’re not going to hear another thing about him and about this for another month,” Pate pointed out. “And you’re going to get a legitimate search put together and it’s going to have a month’s worth of steam behind it. And then Lane’s going to finish his season, at least his regular season. And then when it comes time in late November, early December for the actual in-person interview to happen if you choose to have one and if he agrees to have one, that’s really when the decision will be made.”

As for whether or not Kiffin will be interested in the LSU job, Pate mostly didn’t seem to have a strong opinion. There are just too many variables, he said.

“My opinion on this has not changed. I don’t think Lane Kiffin knows whether he’s going to take that job if it gets offered to him,” Pate said. “I think it’s very theoretical, it’s 50,000-foot stuff, it’s floating around.

“There is no shame in just waiting it out. Let’s see how it settles. Let’s see how Verge does in the AD’s role. Let’s see how involved person A, B or C is in this search. Let’s see how I feel in a month. Let’s see how my season finishes. Let’s see if they’re OK with me making a run deep into January or if they want a guy named by mid-December. There are a million different variables. You don’t have to have it figured out right now, and I don’t think Lane does and I don’t think LSU does. That search, in many ways, is just now starting.”

Pate pointed to timing as one potential hurdle for LSU in its coaching search. And that could apply to Kiffin or another candidate, like Notre Dame‘s Marcus Freeman, for example.

The college football analyst surmised that if one candidate is far and away the top priority, LSU might be OK waiting out a deep playoff run. If, however, Kiffin were to lose in the opening round of the playoff and Freeman were to make a title-type run again — and the two were relatively equal candidates in the search — perhaps LSU might spring for the earlier option.

And that’s not just an LSU issue, either. It’s new to college football.

“How that plays out at Penn State or at Florida or at Auburn or at LSU is fascinating to me because we just haven’t seen this kind of atmosphere,” Pate said. “Like we haven’t seen this kind of climate is a better way to put it, lately.”