LSU’s in the middle of one of those rare moments where everything seems to be shifting at once. The Tigers just fired Brian Kelly. They’re about to hire a new university president within the next two weeks. There’s this unmistakable sense around Baton Rouge that the changes aren’t going to stop there. The university is at a crossroads. And the decisions being made right now are going to reshape the entire athletic department for years to come.​​

Matt Moscona, the ESPN Baton Rouge host who’s been plugged into LSU for years, dropped a pretty massive piece of intel. According to Moscona, he’s gotten an overwhelming sense from speaking to people in and around that they’re going to make a change in the AD position, currently occupied by Scott Woodward. “I think that’s going to happen within the next two weeks,” Moscona said, referring to the hiring of a new university president. “And I would expect one of the first things the university president does is replace the athletic director.” Woodward might’ve made the call to fire Kelly, but the growing sentiment is that he’s not going to be around much longer to find Kelly’s replacement.​​

Here’s the thing about Scott Woodward that makes this whole situation so complicated. He’s directly connected to the two largest coaching buyouts in college football history. When he was the athletic director at Texas A&M from 2016 to 2019, Woodward brought Jimbo Fisher to College Station with a massive 10-year, fully guaranteed $75 million contract. Fisher later got an extension after Scott Woodward left for LSU, but the foundation was laid by Woodward’s original hire. 

When Texas A&M fired Fisher in 2023, they paid him $76.8 million. That is the biggest buyout college football has ever seen. Now, just two years later, Woodward’s responsible for the second-largest buyout after firing Brian Kelly, who’s owed around $54 million. That’s $130 million combined paid to two coaches not to coach anymore, and both coaches were hired by the same guy.​

Stephen A. Smith went off about it on First Take earlier this week, saying they need to put Woodward’s “mug shot on national television” because who else gets to make those kinds of mistakes without serious consequences? Josh Pate was even more blunt on his show, pointing out that Woodward was responsible for “the Jimbo Fisher fiasco” and now has “the Brian Kelly disaster in his lap.” He added that LSU has had critical financial issues in part because of Woodward’s decisions. 

Beyond the buyouts, there are questions about his overall leadership and whether he’s the right person to guide LSU through what should be one of the most important coaching searches in program history. The alignment issues are real. LSU doesn’t have a president right now, the governor’s reportedly involved in big decisions, and there’s this lingering concern about whether Woodward even has the political capital left to run point on finding Kelly’s replacement.​

The contract that keeps on giving

Scott Woodward’s potential firing starts making sense when you read Kelly’s contract. Greg Bowser, a former LSU defensive lineman from the late 1970s who’s been broadcasting for over three decades, went on the October 27 episode of Jacques Talk and broke down some of the numbers that most people hadn’t seen yet. 

“I was reading the thing from the contract a guy sent me the other day—yesterday—and I looked at it,” Bowser said. “You know, the way the buyout’s structured, if it goes away, what I saw… I mean, he’ll get $750,000 a month for the next five years.” That’s not a typo. Kelly’s walking away with three-quarters of a million dollars deposited into his account every single month while LSU scrambles to find his replacement and fund whoever comes next. 

Kelly was set to make $400,000 in annual base salary plus a $500,000 “longevity compensation” bonus paid out every July 15. And this was on top of $9 million in supplemental compensation. Now LSU’s on the hook for 90% of all that through the remainder of what was supposed to be a 10-year deal.​

But wait, it gets better, or worse, depending on how you look at it. Bowser kept digging through the contract and found something that made him do a double-take. “I looked at Brian Kelly’s contract, and, you know, there was… if he won six games or more, he got a half-million-dollar bonus. And I’m thinking, wait a minute, you just win six games?” LSU’s already sitting at five wins this season with victories over Clemson, Florida, Louisiana Tech, Southeastern Louisiana, and South Carolina.

If that clause technically kicks in, and there’s debate about whether it does, that’s another $500,000 tacked onto an already astronomical buyout. The whole setup feels like something out of a fever dream for LSU administrators. They are now staring at a bill that could realistically hit $54 million or more, depending on how all these clauses shake out.​