LSU reportedly hands over Brian Kelly lawsuit to Louisiana Attorney General
By Andrew Olson
Published:
The lawsuit between the LSU Board of Supervisors and former Tigers head coach Brian Kelly is now reportedly in the hands of the Louisiana Attorney General. Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports/247Sports reported the development on Tuesday afternoon.
Kelly’s ouster came on quickly after LSU‘s blowout home loss to Texas A&M last month. While the football program made a coaching change, it has become clear that the two sides did not have an agreement on Kelly’s massive buyout.
The coaching contract between LSU and Kelly stated the coach would be owed more than $53 million to be bought out of his contract. It also contained offset and mitigation language. Documents obtained by reporters have revealed that Kelly was initially offered $25 million and the elimination of mitigation and offset language. A second offer was made for a total of $30 million and the elimination of mitigation and offset language.
Kelly rejected both offers and set a Monday deadline for a written guarantee of his buyout to be paid. Early Tuesday morning, it was reported that LSU is now claiming Kelly was not formally terminated and the program is seeking to fire him for cause, in which case he would not be owed a buyout.
The Attorney General’s involvement is only the latest development in what has become a politically-charged coaching change at LSU. Gov. Jeff Landry was reportedly directly involved in Kelly’s dismissal due to the absence of a full-time university president at the time. Landry then slammed since-fired LSU athletic director Scott Woodward in public comment and spoke out about the influence of agents while deriding coaching contracts.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
