LSU to name Verge Ausberry full-time athletics director as new president takes over

LSU is set to name Verge Ausberry as its full-time athletics director, The Bengal Tiger’s Shea Dixon confirmed. The decision comes as new president Wade Rousse takes over.

Ausberry became LSU’s interim athletics director last week following Scott Woodward’s departure. All the while, the university was wrapping up its search for a new president. The Board of Supervisors named Rousse as the new president Tuesday afternoon.

When LSU announce Ausberry in the interim role, the school confirmed he would have a prominent role in hiring the next football coach. The Tigers parted ways with Brian Kelly before things escalated and Woodward was eventually let go, as well.

Ausberry has been at LSU since 1991, starting out as an intern in the compliance office. He then worked his way up the ladder and, in 2019, became the school’s executive deputy athletics director. He also served as the executive director of external relations, working closely with the president’s office on governmental relations – both internal and external.

“Verge Ausberry is a native son of Louisiana and LSU, who has spent all of his adult life working to better this athletic department and this state,” said LSU Board Athletics Committee chair John Carmouche in an Oct. 30 statement upon Ausberry’s elevation to interim AD.

From the time he arrived on campus as a football student-athlete, he’s been associated with championship excellence and will continue to uphold that standard in his role as interim athletic director. He’s the ideal person to lead this department with full authority at this time, and together we show the country that LSU continues to be an elite destination for student-athletes, coaches and staff.”

LSU’s football coaching search remains the biggest storyline in Baton Rouge, and Ausberry addressed it during a press conference shortly after becoming interim athletics director. He made his expectations crystal clear: the Tigers should be a perennial College Football Playoff team.

“Our next chapter is to hire a football coach,” Ausberry said. “Hire the best football coach there is. That’s our jobs. We’ll go out there, and we are not going to let this program fail. LSU has to be in the playoffs every year in football. There’s 12 teams that make it. It’s going to expand here. We have to be one of those at LSU. No substitute.”

“We have to be talked about on ESPN. Every channel, we’re talking about LSU football. That is the way. This big building here has to be successful if we’re going to be successful as an athletic department. That’s the measuring stick that we have here.”