Podcast: Is LSU in a state of chaos after string of firings?

LSU has once again made national news this week, with the firing of athletic director Scott Woodward to pair with the firing of Brian Kelly on Sunday. It’s a complete overhaul for the program and the athletics department and Shea Dixon and Matthew Brune are here to break it all down.

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On the pod: LSU and Jeff Landry

Matthew Brune: Yes. All right, let’s talk about next in the process. the Governor Landry aspect. On Tuesday, Wednesday, I think even Thursday, maybe even , initially, it was the press conference at the Capitol or around there, where he held the press conference and he was asked about the situation.

And this was obviously before Scott Woodward was fired, when Scott Woodward was still the AD. But it very quickly showed that Scott Woodward would not be the AD much longer. He quickly said he is not making the choice. He has dug this state too big of a hole and has — the taxpayers have to foot the bill. All that stuff. You can go read it on The Bengal Tiger — all of what he said.

But that’s kind of the long and the short of it. I think this definitely showed that Woodward was not going to be the AD. And I think that it showed the urgency in terms of Landry in this state being kind of fed up with the fact that Brian Kelly was here three years and now you have to pay him another 50-plus million dollars.

And so, we already know about the Ed Orgeron buyout, but that buyout was significantly less. So now it’s back-to-back coaches where you’re firing them and you’re paying them not to work. And that seemed like a lot of where Landry’s frustrations came from. So I guess, where do you want to take it in terms of just those few days — where he was there, then Pat McAfee, and then on radio — and just what were your general takeaways?

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Shea Dixon
Yeah, I think that if you strip back, or peel back the onion here a few layers, you know that you’re just dealing at the core of this with a political feud. Scott Woodward comes from the lobbyist world. He’s a Democrat. Your current sitting governor, Landry, is a Republican.

Um, and they have this kind of — sort of — the target on Woodward’s back didn’t show up this week, right? Like this was something that most figured would happen. And as you go through this with no president, there is going to be a school — the school’s going to announce the hire of a new president on Tuesday, which will be the 1st… 2nd… the 4th — Tuesday the 4th of November. All signs point to McNeese’s current sitting president as the likely guy to fill that role, which — William Tate, President Tate — is now at Rutgers.

So that was part of this as well. Like, as most people know — um, I think everyone outside of Louisiana and the LSU bubble is just now figuring out, like, “Whoa, this is very political down there.” But William Tate had done an excellent job at LSU. He left for Rutgers because the writing was on the wall that there was going to be a push for a change.

And now they’re going to fill that role. I’m going to guess the president is going to tap the next AD. We’ll see how that unfolds. A lot of people have pointed to McNeese’s AD as maybe the front-runner there, but we’ll see.

Right now, we just know that Verge is interim AD, and those people — like the president, for instance — the governor appoints the Board of Supervisors, 14 of them

There’s power play dynamics there, right? Like, they’re the ones who are tasked with making hires — like notable, you know, when you want to go hire Kim Mulkey, well, the board still has to approve it.

Landry talked about there being a committee. Verge opened up on that today, saying, “Hey, look, here’s the people that are going to help in the search.” Uh, he left it a little vague. He said there’s one mystery person that’s involved. I’m going to guess it might be Austin Thomas there, but we’ll see. But I guess, let me just say that the governor’s here at the top, right? And then you’ve got the school president. But you also have these 14 Board of Supervisors who are over the entire system — not just LSU, but things beyond just the football search.

That group, sort of between Verge and a handful of others, are going to be the ones tasked with finding the new football coach. Landry kind of walked it back in a way and said, “Hey, look, I’ve said all this, but I am not going to be the person actually picking the next coach of LSU. Verge and these other people will be.” So, we got clarity there.