The LSU Tigers' coaching carousel leaves a staggering $70 million tab in buyouts. Discover the hefty price of aggressive athletic department decisions.
There have been a lot of changes made in Baton Rouge recently, most notably at the head coach positions of the football and basketball teams. While exciting, the bill on those moves continues to rise.
There was the change made at athletic director, with the Tigers firing Scott Woodward to promote Verge Ausberry. LSU fired Brian Kelly to lure Lane Kiffin away from the Ole Miss Rebels before that. Now, they fire Matt McMahon as basketball coach and bring Will Wade back, hiring him away from the NC State Wolfpack.
That is a lot of early exits on big deals with new coaches hired onto even more expensive contracts. Before even focusing on the money that they have to hand out to new hires, the Tigers are now up to over $70 million on the tab in dead money for buyouts alone.
This is how the math works on those deals:
Brian Kelly's $54 million buyout
Lane Kiffin's $3 million Ole Miss buyout
Matt McMahon's $8 million buyout
Will Wade's $4 million NC State buyout
Scott Woodward's $6 million buyout
Wade's buyout from the Wolfpack was set to be $5.3 million and drop to $3 million at the beginning of April, but LSU wanted to waste no time with the transfer portal opening on April 7. They negotiated that buyout down to just $4 million.
This is the price of business for the Tigers, making such swinging moves in one offseason, but it also shows how seriously the athletics department is taking things. The football team was underperforming, and the basketball team was showing little to no growth.
They now have a very loud and expensive coaching staff that should not need a change for a long time.