What to know about Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s intervention in LSU football

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Gov. Jeff Landry is being applauded by some for taking a stand against bloated contracts in college sports and derided by others for political grandstanding that could make it harder for Louisiana State University to land a new football coach.

This much is clear: The governor has been a vocal force in a sports shakeup that has consumed LSU recently.

The university lost its football coach and athletic director last week amid criticism from Landry, a smooth-talking Cajun populist and staunch ally of President Donald Trump.

The episode is just the latest example of Landry being hands on with LSU since taking office last year. He once revived the team’s tradition of bringing a live tiger onto the football field, publicly called for the school to discipline professors who criticized Trump in class and complained about LSU women’s basketball players not being on court to stand for the national anthem, though the team did not change its pre-game routine.

Here’s what to know:

What did Landry say?

LSU football coach Brian Kelly was fired in the fourth season of a 10-year, $100 million deal, the day after a 49-25 loss to Texas A&M on Oct. 25.

The day of Kelly’s firing, Landry said he hosted a meeting in the governor’s mansion on the evening of Oct. 26 “to discuss the legalities of the contract.” Landry has said he is concerned his state will be on the hook to pay for Kelly’s buyout, which is about $54 million.

John Carmouche, chair of the LSU’s Board of Supervisors’ Athletic Committee, told the AP that the meeting at the governor’s mansion occurred after Kelly had already been fired by athletic director Scott Woodward.

While the governor’s concerns are valid, negotiations with Kelly are ongoing and private donors and nonprofits have typically picked up the bill for sports-related buyouts at the university, Carmouche added.

Days after Kelly’s firing, Landry told reporters at a Wednesday press conference that LSU’s athletic director would not be selecting the next football coach.

“Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it,” said Landry. He also criticized Woodward’s prior tenure at Texas A&M, where he served as the school’s athletic director.

The next day, LSU cut ties with Woodward.

In a Thursday statement, Woodward said that “others can recap or opine on my tenure and on my decisions over the last six years as Director of Athletics, but I will not.”

Board chairman Scott Ballard framed Woodward’s departure as the result of “a mutual agreement after conversations” between Woodward and the LSU board. Nine of 18 Board of Supervisors members have been appointed by Landry since taking office in January 2024 and the governor will be able to appoint four more in 2026.

Carmouche, who like Ballard was appointed to the LSU board by Landry, denied that the governor’s remarks had any influence on Woodward’s departure.

“We’re all independent people,” Carmouche said.

What’s next for LSU football

In a Friday press conference, LSU interim athletic director Verge Ausberry, flanked by Ballard and Carmouche, sought to reassure the public that the school’s athletic department “is not broken.”

A search committee comprised of Ausberry, Carmouche, Ballard and several others is on the hunt for a new coach. The university board is scheduled to vote on a new president Tuesday, having been without one since June.

Landry has denied that he will be picking the next coach, but said he wants the new contract to be structured differently than Kelly’s.

“We’re going to put metrics on it, because I’m tired of rewarding failure in this country and then leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill,” Landry told reporters.

What others are saying

“The Louisiana governor and the LSU board has damaged the reputation of our university,” political pundit James Carville, a Democrat, told the AP. Carville has said he plans to burn his LSU diploma and football gear and is mulling a defamation lawsuit against Landry on Woodward’s behalf.

Carville hosted a welcome party for Woodward, a former political consultant and lobbyist, when he was hired by LSU in 2019. Under Woodward, LSU won six national championships in various sports, including football.

Former Louisiana Board of Regents Chair Richard Lipsey, who founded the influential Tiger Athletic Foundation and recommended Woodward’s hiring, said that Landry’s comments about Woodward revealed that he “wanted more control over LSU” and “wants to run the athletics department.”

Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Ed Orgeron, the former LSU football coach who led the team to a national title in 2019, said that it’s not unusual for a Louisiana governor to take an active interest in the university’s football program. Landry’s predecessor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, hosted dinners for the university’s freshmen recruiting class and showed up at practice to throw passes with LSU receivers.

Current Louisiana Board of Regents Chair Misti Cordell, a Landry appointee, said that the governor’s comments sparked constructive public discussion about the need for greater guardrails to protect public universities amid ballooning costs in college sports: “He said what a lot of people were thinking.”

Rep. Dixon Wallace McMakin, an LSU graduate who serves as the football team’s announcer, said that Louisiana governors have regularly sought to influence the Tigers dating back a century to the days of firebrand populist Huey Long and are sensitive to poor performance on the gridiron.

“It affects everybody and a governor feels it from all of his voters around the state,” said McMakin, a Republican. “Our standard is excellence, and anything less than excellence we will not stand for in the state of Louisiana.”

Wilbert Pryor, who has served on the Louisiana Board of Regents for nearly a decade, said Landry’s perceived influence over the LSU athletics program would complicate the hiring process for a new coach reluctant to have the governor looking over his shoulder.

“I don’t remember any governor in my lifetime making decisions on college football,” Pryor said. “You’d think he would have other things to garner his attention.”