Paul Finebaum: Louisiana governor Jeff Landry hurt LSU in Lane Kiffin sweepstakes

The coaching carousel has already been a crazy one around college football. Several top-tier jobs are open, including LSU. Among those jobs, many are seemingly interested in Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, including LSU.

There’s a problem for LSU, though. Governor Jeff Landry has been very public with his involvement in LSU athletics, including calling for former athletic director Scott Woodward to be fired and being hyper critical of large contracts for coaches. All of that amounts to a seemingly chaotic situation that could keep coaches away. At least, that’s what pundit Paul Finebaum suggested on The Matt Barrie Show.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say this week, ‘We need to keep politics out of college football,'” Paul Finebaum said. “Wrong. Every university president goes to the state legislature, whether it’s Louisiana, Florida, New Mexico, and that’s where the money comes from. Not for athletics, per se, but for the university. All we’ve heard for three years, every commissioner going to Washington, pleading with Congress. So, politics and college football are intertwined, but the problem with this governor is he just became a caricature of Louisiana governors. That’s hard to do, by the way, when you understand the history of that state.”

The issue is that someone like Kiffin simply may not want to deal with a governor who has been so public. While that type of influence might be at every school, Landry has made the situation unique at LSU, especially as the school is currently without a president or athletic director.

“He made it if you’re Lane Kiffin or somebody else,” Finebaum said. “You’re going, ‘Do I want to deal with that?’ Of all the things that Governor Landry did, he did one thing that really mattered. He fired the athletic director live. I’ve never seen that before.”

None of that is to say LSU is a bad job. Finebaum still believes it’s among the best. However, if Kiffin chooses to leave Ole Miss and is splitting hairs between different jobs, it could play a major role in his decision on where to go.

“The problem is, LSU went from the best job in the country to behind a couple of other ones. Now, that can repopulate,” Finebaum said. “Assuming they can get someone in there quickly to be the president and try to settle everyone down. It’s still a great, but particularly for someone like Lane Kiffin who I think is the number one target of all those schools, I think they were hurt.”

For now, the focus on LSU needs to be on finding some kind of alignment. That means hiring a president and athletic director, getting that administration on the same page before hiring the next head football coach.