In the wake of Billy Napier getting fired, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made a couple of quips here and there, but he has taken a hands-off approach to the hiring process, at least publicly. In fact, Florida administration as a whole has kept things very tight to the vest and really hasn't said much publicly in terms of which direction it intends to go.
That is a vast contrast to the approach Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has taken with the LSU coaching search, and it might have catapulted the Gators ahead of the Tigers in terms of the most desirable job in America.
Jeff Landry slams LSU AD over Brian Kelly
LSU fired Brian Kelly on Sunday with a hefty buyout bill attached to letting him go. This has drawn the ire of Landry, who let his feelings be known at a press conference on Wednesday:
"No, I can tell you right now, Scott Woodward (LSU AD) will not be selecting the next coach (of LSU football). The Board of Supervisors (picked by La. Governor) is going to come up with a committee, and they're going to go find us a coach."
Alrighty then.
But Landry didn't stop there when critiquing Woodward:
"I'm not going to pick the next coach. But I can promise you, we're going to pick a coach, and we'll make sure he's compensated properly. We'll put metrics on him. Because I'm tired of rewarding failure in this country. And making taxpayers foot the bill."
Landry's point isn't actually that ridiculous, and it's part of the same frustrations we had with Napier's contract that Scott Stricklin signed off on. Right now, the most desirable job in America is being a fired college football coach because universities are handing out these massive contracts with no protections if things go south.
Coaches can't even get deals this good in the NFL.
Yet as it pertains to Florida, this instantly vaults the opening in Gainesville ahead of the opening in Baton Rouge. There are pros and cons to both programs, and the advantage LSU has is access to elite in-state talent that seldom goes anywhere but LSU.
But now any prospective coach thinking about jumping to LSU is:
- Probably not going to get a lucrative contract
- Has to worry about the governor looking over his shoulder
The latter is a headache that almost no coach is going to want to deal with, and for all of the talk of Florida being a "toxic" place to work, Baton Rouge just took the top spot of toxicity in college football.