Just one day after Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry vowed that LSU Athletic Director Scott Woodward would not hire the next head football coach, Woodward resigned on Thursday, October 30, 2025, after six years on the job. His resignation came just four days after the firing of head football coach Brian Kelly on Sunday, October 26. That decision followed a bruising loss at home on Saturday to the 3rd ranked Texas A&M Aggies, 49-25.
With Kelly only eight games into his fourth season of a 10-year contract, his buyout totals nearly $54 million. Amid allegations that the governor influenced the decision to fire Coach Kelly, during an unrelated press conference on Wednesday, Landry said Woodward [who hired Kelly, along with baseball head coach Jay Johnson, and women’s basketball head coach Kim Mulkey, among others], would not be involved in the hiring decision. “I can tell you right now, Scott is not selecting the next coach. Hell, I'll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it. I don't know. But the Board of Supervisors is gonna come up with a committee and they're gonna go find us a coach.”
As Louisiana Public Radio reports, the LSU Board of Supervisors — whose members are appointed by Landry — are not typically involved in head coaching hires. That job typically falls to the athletic director. Landry justified his remarks by saying Woodward has a history of hiring head coaches who get massive buyouts when they’re fired. Besides Kelly’s contract, the second largest buyout ever, Woodward also hired Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher back in 2017. He signed a 10-year, fully guaranteed $75 million contract.
But, it turns out, by the time Fisher was fired six years later, in 2023, when Fisher’s buyout totaled a whopping $77 million that was the result of a new contract, which had been renegotiated by A&M Athletic Director Ross Bjork, after Woodward had already left the school.
LSU now finds itself without a school president, athletic director, and head football coach. There is movement on one of those openings. A search committee narrowed their selection to three finalists and are expected to announce a new LSU president on Tuesday, Nov. 4. The finalists include former University of Arizona President Robert Robbins, University of Alabama Executive Vice President and Provost James T. Dalton and McNeese State University President Wade Rousse.
As for the LSU athletic director position, Executive Deputy Executive Director Verge Ausberry will serve as Interim Director of Athletics. As for the head football coach position, Associate head coach/running backs coach Frank Wilson will serve as interim head coach for the remainder of the 2025 season.
As the Louisiana Radio Network is now reporting, Board of Supervisors member John Carmouche denies that Landry had anything to do with Woodward’s departure. “His concern had to do with the state contract. LSU Board of Supervisors and Mr. Woodward decided jointly to part ways.”
LSU Board Chairman Scott Ballard further stated, “It was a mutual agreement after conversations with all the things that come into that: energy and family and what you’re doing, and nothing’s off the table of why Scott and LSU had a mutual agreement.”
Gov. Landry has said state taxpayers may have to pay the cost of Kelly's buyout. But Carmouche explained, “The state has never, and the taxpayers have never paid for a coach, and never will.” Instead, As Chairman Ballard has explained, salaries come from self-generating funds of the LSU athletic department and private donations.
As for Woodward’s potential buyout, his contract states he may be owed more than $5 million through 2029, 'if' it is determined that the governor's highly public statements and criticisms of Woodward may have made his position untenable moving forward.
During a news conference on Friday morning, October 31, 2025, LSU Board of Supervisors member John Carmouche (Left), LSU’s interim athletic director Verge Ausberry (middle), and LSU Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott Ballard (right), came together in the Lawton Room on campus in Baton Rouge to field questions. They centered on Scott Woodward’s time as LSU AD coming to an end, the search for a new head coach of the football team.
