Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
Also props to Landry for noting that massive buyout provisions are good for only one of a contract's parties: the coach. They leave the universities holding the bag. Taken on their face, neither of these critiques is out of bounds. But everything else about Landry's role in the LSU saga has been wrong. Landry has bashed Woodward for his actions at both schools, but Woodward was not technically responsible for Fisher’s $77 million buyout in 2023. That buyout was the result of the extension and raise Woodward's successor gave to Fisher two years after Woodward left for LSU. More importantly, Landry messed up when he decided to publicly kneecap one of the flagship university's top officials. It began Wednesday, when he was asked at a news conference about the LSU coaching vacancy, and he took aim at Woodward. "I can tell you right now, Scott Woodward is not selecting the next coach," Landry said. “Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let (Woodward) do it,” Landry said. Even though Landry then insisted that LSU’s Board of Supervisors would form a committee to pick the next coach (apparently a surprise to Board Chairman Scott Ballard), Landry’s own words made his meaning plain: Power in this situation flows from him alone. Landry could have backpedaled at this point, realizing that the optics of having the governor this deeply involved in coaching decisions does not reflect well on the university or the state. Instead, he doubled down when he went on ESPN's Pat McAfee show Thursday. “There’s a number of bad contracts that seem to have followed Scott Woodward,” he said on the show. Landry then again insisted he would not be picking the coach. “That is not my job,” he said. He also said that whoever gets the job will have a “patently different contract.” So, to sum up: Landry decides who will hire the next coach and gets to approve the contract, but he doesn't hire the new coach. He controls the process, but gets to blame somebody else if it goes badly. With those statements, Woodward's departure became little more than a formality. Landry had publicly ridiculed the six-year AD who brought LSU athletics an impressive run of success. During Woodward's tenure, LSU teams won six national titles, including two in baseball under Jay Johnson (Woodward hire), the first ever by gymnastics under Jay Clark (Woodward hire) and the first ever women's basketball title under Kim Mulkey (Woodward hire). Of course, Woodward's departure means another buyout, this one about $6.7 million. Landry didn’t mention that, though. The governor's role in this saga did serve one purpose: It put LSU's coaching search and Landry at the center of the sports media spotlight — and not not in a good way. Now much of the rest of the sports world is chuckling and noting that Louisiana is "it's own country," as McAfee said, or "less a state than a rogue nation," as The Dallas Morning News called it. Landry would have done well to take his cues from Texas. Gov. Greg Abbot, like Landry, is a conservative firebrand, but even he stayed out of the fray when the Aggies ponied up to Jimbo Fisher. And look how it's helped: Texas A&M got a good coach, beat the crap out of LSU last Saturday and is now enjoying its best season in years.
