Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
Don't ever let anyone tell you it isn't about the money. Former LSU football coach Brian Kelly filed a lawsuit against the school Monday. The suit says that representatives from LSU told his lawyers in a call earlier Monday that Kelly was not "formally terminated" last month and that it now seeks to fire him for cause, according to a copy obtained by The Advocate. Kelly’s people shot back that they want the full $54 million he’s owed. There’s virtually no limit to the lengths people will fight over a vastly smaller amount of money than this, which is on paper the second-biggest buyout in college football history. There’s little question that both LSU and Kelly have resorted to the nuclear option, and that now there is virtually no way for this to end amicably. Where this goes from here and what impact it has on the LSU search to replace Kelly is of course the huge question for you, me and every LSU fan out there, including the few superrich LSU boosters who guaranteed Kelly’s buyout in the first place. At the very least, it's yet another destabilizing chapter in a process that has appeared to be wildly unstable from the outset. In my time covering LSU, this is my seventh coaching search, going back to LSU replacing Mike Archer with Curley Hallman after the 1991 season. All of them, every single one, was tamer than this. This is “Crazy Days at LSU” — the episode in the 1980s involving basketball coach Dale Brown and athletic director Bob Brodhead bugging his own office — on steroids. Let’s review: LSU fires Kelly (apparently) on Oct. 26, the day after losing to Texas A&M. Later that week, athletic director Scott Woodward is forced out after Gov. Jeff Landry publicly says Woodward will not be allowed to hire the next coach. LSU hires McNeese State’s Wade Rousse as its new president, who almost immediately clouds the status of athletic director Verge Ausberry, charged with leading LSU’s coaching search, with a couple of misstatements about his status. By Thursday, Rousse clarified that Ausberry was formally LSU’s AD going forward, appearing to allow LSU’s coaching search to steam ahead on comparatively calm waters as well. And now this. Just when you think this whole saga is reaching a Louisiana level of normality (which isn’t very normal) and LSU can try to repair the damage done to its coaching search, something else happens. But back to the lawsuit. According to Kelly’s lawyers, LSU’s representatives told them that Woodward did not have the authority to fire him. If any of you read those words and hear them coming out of Landry’s mouth, you’re not alone. That sounds absurd, and Kelly’s lawyers will have plenty of evidence of past LSU athletic directors, including Woodward in the case of Ed Orgeron four years ago, firing coaches without any claims against the AD’s authority then. On the face of it, it will appear that LSU is not in the business of honoring its contracts. It will appear to be a giant red flag to any prospective candidate. The only way that is mitigated is if LSU can spell out to said prospective candidate, convincingly, why it decided to try to fire Kelly for cause. That said, it brings up the potentially minor but at this point interesting fact that Kelly did email LSU the day he was fired saying he was open to a settlement offer right from the start. He then rejected LSU’s two early lump-sum settlement offers of $25 and $30 million. Why would Kelly express a willingness to explore a settlement if not concerned that something like this might eventually happen? Since this all started, I have given the opinion that while LSU has had mistakes and embarrassments during this process, it still had time to get its house in order and hire a top-shelf candidate. With every new chapter, every new revelation, that window narrows. Perhaps a little, perhaps significantly. Kelly has valid reasons for wanting all of his buyout as spelled out in the contract. LSU may have valid reasons for wanting to fire him for cause. Kelly’s reputation, and possible desire to want to coach again, are at stake. But he is one man. The future of LSU’s football program and the athletic department it largely funds is at stake with what already shaped up as the most important coaching hire in school history. One thing to remember about coaching searches: Don’t dismiss or discount any possibility, however outlandish it may seem. That goes double for “Kelly v. LSU.” Because it’s always about the money.
