Gov. Jeff Landry forced out LSU's athletic director

After firing LSU football coach Brian Kelly Sunday, Athletic Director Scott Woodward began preparing to find his successor — until Gov. Jeff Landry made a surprise announcement.

Answering a question at a news conference on an unrelated subject, Landry brought up Woodward’s 2021 hiring of Kelly, saying it was a “terrible contract” that left the university on the hook for nearly $54 million for the remaining years.

As a result, Landry said, the LSU Board of Supervisors, not Woodward, would choose Kelly’s successor.

“I can tell you right now, Scott Woodward is not selecting the next coach,” Landry said. “Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it.”

Scott Ballard, the Landry-appointed chair of the board, expressed surprise at the governor’s announcement when a WBRZ-TV reporter asked for his reaction.

"Well then, I better get to it!" he said as he was leaving the interview.

Landry kept up his attacks on Woodward in interviews on two sports shows Thursday, despite a chorus of complaints that he was meddling in the affairs of the athletic department.

Hours later, LSU announced that Woodward was stepping down immediately. The governor’s office on Friday said Landry had no comment for now.

Landry’s role in forcing out Woodward is only the latest example of his philosophy to move fast and break things if necessary. His approach has invited comparisons to President Donald Trump and former Gov. Huey Long.

“When have I ever moved slow? I don’t move slow,” Landry said during a 2024 interview.

As governor, Landry has relished battles with critics, a surprise to no one who has known him since he was a self-described hyperactive teenager in St. Martin Parish.

When opponents of legislation to require schools to post the Ten Commandments said they would take him to court last year, for example, the governor shot back, “I can’t wait to be sued.”

Leadership vacuum

Landry’s push into managing LSU’s storied football program comes during a leadership vacuum at the university.

A search for a new president is underway after William Tate resigned in May to lead Rutgers University.

Political insiders have said Landry favors McNeese State President Wade Rousse for the LSU job. Landry's office didn't respond Friday when asked about the presidential search.

Landry has already inserted himself into the hiring of at least one university president.

Last year, the governor said publicly that he wanted the University of Louisiana System board, whose chair he appointed, to hire then-Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Genovese to be the next president of Northwestern State in Natchitoches. The board truncated the selection process and selected Genovese.

The LSU presidential search committee, chaired by Ballard, is zeroing in on its pick. The search committee favored James Dalton, executive vice president and provost at the University of Alabama, when it winnowed its list to three finalists on Wednesday. Rousse and a former president of the University of Arizona also received strong support.

The LSU board, which includes several members on the search committee, is scheduled to choose the university’s new president on Tuesday.

'Can't be business as usual'

In the meantime, Landry is under fire from some commentators who think he has gone too far in ousting Woodward -- the university won six national championships in his six years -- and has created other controversies at LSU.

“Jeff Landry has damaged the university’s reputation,” said James Carville, the Democratic political pundit who has undergraduate and law school degrees from LSU and taught at the university for four years. “It’s not just about football. They have profoundly devalued the degree of everyone who graduates from LSU or is on the faculty of LSU. He has taken an ascendant university and dragged it down.”

Shane Guidry defends Landry’s moves with Woodward.

“Sometimes in business you have to make changes,” said Guidry, a business owner in New Orleans who is one of Landry’s closest advisers. “You can’t keep rewarding bad behavior or bad business decisions. It can’t be business as usual. At the end of the day, this governor is a businessman who wants to be a good steward for taxpayers and make fans happy. He wants the right person as coach and athletic director.”

During Landry’s 22 months as governor, he has gotten a Republican-controlled state Legislature to approve a series of measures that have expanded his already considerable powers and has shoved the state to the right politically after eight years of a Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards.

Most recently, Landry called for an extraordinary state takeover of New Orleans’ finances as a condition for his administration agreeing to a $125 million short-term loan for the Democrat-led city. New Orleans elected officials dropped the loan request to avoid giving up control over the city’s finances.

Landry gained more control over the LSU and University of Louisiana System boards last year thanks to a measure that allowed him to name the chairs of state boards and commissions, rather than have the boards themselves select their chairs.

During his tenure, Landry and state lawmakers have moved to lock up more offenders, expand private school vouchers and prohibit transgender students from insisting that teachers call them by their preferred pronouns.

Landry has been touting changes to the state tax system and announcements for billion-dollar investments by such companies as Hyundai and Meta.

“Under Landry’s administration, we’ve made incredible strides forward,” said state Rep. John Wyble, R-Franklinton. “We’re bringing economic opportunities for our communities. That’s what will matter most to our families. That’s going to be the real measuring stick.”

Aggressive moves

Landry has moved aggressively on many fronts as governor.

Shortly after taking office, Landry brought a permanent 20-person State Police unit to New Orleans called Troop Nola. It has deployed drones and cameras in the French Quarter and, while working with the New Orleans Police Department and the FBI, has targeted guns, drugs and violent attacks. Crime has dropped.

Two months ago, Landry announced plans to open a detention center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

“This facility is fulfilling the president’s promise to make America safe again,” Landry said, flanked by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Despite these moves, Landry did not score well in a public survey in mid-October by John Couvillon, a Baton Rouge-based pollster for Unite America, a national group that opposes closed political primaries, which Louisiana adopted for congressional races last year at Landry’s behest.

Couvillon’s poll showed that 39% of likely voters in Louisiana held a favorable view of Landry, while 51% viewed him unfavorably.

For comparison’s sake, Trump had a 48% favorable rating and a 50% unfavorable rating.

Couvillon was struck that Landry’s favorable/unfavorable rating among Republicans was 65% to 27%, versus Trump’s 85% to 13%. Trump was 34 percentage points more popular among Republicans than Landry.

“He has problems with his own base,” Couvillon said of the governor.

LSU headlines

But it’s Landry’s involvement in LSU that often grabs the biggest headlines because of its central role in the state.

“It is the most indispensable state university in the country,” Carville said. “We don’t have a Mississippi State, an Auburn or an Iowa State.”

Landry won both applause and brickbats on Monday night when he called for the university to erect a statue of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was shot to death at Utah Valley University in September. The governor called it a move “to defend freedom of speech on college campuses.”

“C'mon, ladies and gentlemen, let's see if we can be the first campus to do it,” Landry said in a video while standing beside the Mike the Tiger statue near Tiger Stadium.

Tim Miller, a conservative anti-Trumper who lives in New Orleans, called the idea of a Kirk statue at LSU “insane” during a podcast Thursday for The Bulwark.

“He isn’t from Louisiana, he didn’t go to LSU, he has no connection to the university, he didn’t even finish college,” Miller said. “There is no reason to honor him. There are a million LSU graduates out there or people from the state of Louisiana who have done great things, who have done honorable things, who have reflected the values of free speech, the values of the state and the country you can build statues to.”

Landry also inserted himself into the affairs of LSU last year by forcing university officials to bring a live tiger back to Tiger Stadium for the Alabama game. The tiger, named Omar Bradley, stayed on the field for only seven minutes.

Landry’s push into LSU football came within hours of the team’s embarrassing loss to Texas A&M last Saturday and a week after LSU was defeated by Vanderbilt, traditionally a weak opponent. In his initial comments, Landry excoriated the decision, announced the day before the Texas A&M game, to raise ticket prices next year. On Sunday night, he convened a meeting at the Governor's Mansion with LSU officials and others to study Kelly's contract and the path forward.

Landry first blasted Woodward while answering a question Wednesday during a news conference devoted to how to help the poor during the federal government shutdown.

"My role is about the fiscal effect of firing a coach under a terrible contract, OK?" Landry said. "All I care about is what the taxpayers are going to be on the hook (for). I was also not happy with the fact that we were raising ticket prices while we were having a losing season. And we were paying a coach $100 million, and we were not getting the results.”

Jay Dardenne, a former state senator from Baton Rouge and LSU graduate who oversaw the operations of state government for Gov. John Bel Edwards, echoed the views of many others in questioning whether paying off the $54 million remaining in Kelly’s contract would cost state taxpayers. Dardenne said that private donations to the Tiger Athletic Foundation typically pay for that kind of contract.

LSU now also will have to pay Woodward $6.7 million for the final four years of his contract.

Kim Mulkey, who brought LSU a national title after Woodward brought her back to Louisiana to coach the women’s basketball team, was “heartbroken” at his departure, said the team’s associate coach Thursday night. Landry had criticized Mulkey and her team in April 2024 for not being on the court during the national anthem. Woodward defended his coach.

Numerous commentators have said that Landry’s attack on Woodward has sullied LSU’s reputation in the sports world.

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