LA Gov. Jeff Landry claims Tigers’ next coach will ‘have a patently different contract’
Published:
We thought we were in for a crazy college football coaching cycle. Then, on Sunday, LSU fired Brian Kelly. Now, the wheels are entirely off the rails.
During Thursday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry told McAfee that the Tigers’ next coach “will have a patently different contract” than Kelly. This comes on the heels of Republican congressman Michael Baumgartner (WA) introducing the COACH (Correcting Opportunity and Accountability in Collegiate Hiring) Act, which would have limited Kelly’s salary to approximately $270K instead of roughly $9.4 million.
Could the salary that Kelly and other college coaches command theoretically be reallocated to other areas that would provide more public benefit? Yes. However, pretending every dollar the government gets is put to intelligent use — no matter which side of the political aisle you stand on — would be naive.
Landry also seemed to take a shot at superagent Jimmy Sexton in his comments to McAfee:
The reality is, college coaches get paid their high salaries because of the money they bring to their universities. Football programs help fund numerous other collegiate sports. In 2021, The Athletic came up with approximate “franchise” values for each college football team. LSU, at No. 10, was worth $1.23 billion dollars. Kelly’s salary was a paltry 0.76% of that figure.
If LSU wants to remain at or near the top of college football, a $270K salary simply isn’t feasible. That said, if they need someone to do the job at that price, I’m easy to find.
