.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
Alabama coordinator Lane Kiffin is on the list of LSU coaching candidates after the school fired Les Miles Sunday.
No one is disputing that.
And why wouldn’t he be? Kiffin hits all the boxes for LSU.
He has head coaching experience in the SEC. He’s young. He’s an elite recruiter. He knows the current landscape of the league. He’s won a national championship as a coordinator. He’s offensive minded. He’s worked closely with Nick Saban.
This is exactly what LSU is looking for in their next head coach.
The only problem? Well, it’s Lane Kiffin...
You know, Lane Kiffin, the guy who was hired as the head coach of the Raiders at age 31, only to leave for the University of Tennessee two years later in an acrimonious split that was only upped by his move to USC after one year at Rocky Top.
The same Lane Kiffin who was fired from USC at an LAX terminal.
For the better part of a decade, wherever Kiffin has gone, chaos and controversy have followed. Fairly or not, that’s his rap now.
The LSU power brokers who are making this hire still view the Tigers’ job as one of the best in the nation, so why would they sign up for Kiffin? The state, school, and athletic department are in a vulnerable place, and a bad hire could put all in an even more precarious spot. We’ve seen what Kiffin has done elsewhere as a head coach. How could LSU risk that?
Well, because LSU might not have a better choice. They might have to take the risk on Kiffin’s second (or third, or fourth) chance.
LSU’s first choice is widely expected to be Jimbo Fisher, who was the team’s offensive coordinator from 2000 to 2006. After that, Houston coach Tom Herman is the closest thing to a slam dunk the coaching world has to offer.
LSU needs to land Fisher or Herman or they’re going to have a big public relations problem.
But why would Fisher or Herman go to LSU?
The super boosters on the bayou are going to have the money, but at the highest levels of the college football coaching ranks, money isn’t everything. The nation’s best coaches can get more than enough money to live as a coordinator at a major school. No, coaches want institutional stability, near-limitless athletic department support, and the ability to run a program the way they want.
Right now, LSU cannot provide any of those three things.
That makes LSU a risky job to take. The state has a massive budget shortfall which threatens the school, athletic director Joe Alleva could be fired at any minute, and any coach that comes to LSU is going to inherit a roster that is viewed as a few tweaks away from National Championship contention.
LSU might have the money for a big head coach’s salary, but with that money comes major expectations. The new coach is going to have to win now and win big. There will be no honeymoon period and no opportunity to make all the changes a coach might deem necessary.
Fisher has one of the best jobs in the nation, and while LSU is arguably a bigger platform than Florida State, he already makes more than $5 million a season and has a program built to contend for national championships for the next decade while playing in an easier conference to reach the College Football Playoff. Outside of boredom, where’s the upside of LSU for Fisher?
You can see the upside of LSU for Herman, but that gap could close significantly should Houston go to the Big 12 conference. Should Houston get the call-up, Herman would get a $5 million bonus and surely renegotiate his contract with the school to make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the nation. He probably won’t get to LSU money, but you can’t imagine that with Houston’s boosters, he’d be too far off, and he’d have complete and total control over his football program — you can’t put a price on that.
LSU can’t offer that control. No one knows who is in charge at the school, leaving a vacuum for the boosters to run the show.
Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino has a similar situation to Fisher, plus a level of debt to athletic director Tom Jurich, who gave him a second (or third, or fourth) chance when he brought him back to the school. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney’s isn’t going to leave that job for anything but Alabama, his alma matter.
Those are the elite coaches. LSU’s best shot is with Herman, and if he passes, where does that leave LSU?
In a spot where Lane Kiffin would make a lot of sense.
