LSU athletic director Scott Woodward resigned under pressure from the post he’s held for six years on Thursday night, four days after the firing of football coach Brian Kelly and a day after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said Woodward would not hire Kelly’s replacement.
Woodward, a Baton Rouge native and LSU graduate, was hired as athletic director at his alma mater in April 2019. Since then, LSU has won national championships in football, baseball (twice), women’s basketball and gymnastics.
“We thank Scott for the last six years of service as athletic director,” LSU Board of Supervisors chairman Scott Ballard said. “He had a lot of success at LSU.
“Our focus now is on moving the athletic department forward and best positioning LSU to achieve its full potential.”
Verge Ausberry, LSU’s executive deputy athletic director, will replace Woodward on an interim basis and lead the search for a football coach, the university announced.
In an open letter to LSU fans, Woodward said, “Our University will always hold a special place in my heart and I will never be too far from LSU.”
“Others can recap or opine on my tenure and on my decisions over the last six years as Director of Athletics, but I will not,” Woodward said. “Rather, I will focus on the absolute joy that LSU Athletics brings to our state’s residents and to the Baton Rouge community.”
When Woodward was hired in 2019, James Carville, a political pundit who graduated from LSU, taught there and was named to the university’s Manship School of Mass Communication’s Hall of Fame, hosted a welcome party for him at his house in New Orleans.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday night, Carville, a Democrat, expressed disgust at the circumstances surrounding Woodward’s sudden departure.
“The Louisiana governor and the LSU board has damaged the reputation of our university,” Carville said. “Landry’s IQ is the equivalent of the temperature of dishwater.
“The LSU board is weak and pathetic,” Carville added. “This is not about my politics. It’s about my university.”
Landry on Wednesday was hosting a news conference about government matters not concerning LSU when he was asked about the LSU coaching situation and asserted that Woodward would not be involved in the selection of the next coach.
Under Woodward, the football program bought out former coach Ed Orgeron for about $17 million in 2021, and it now must pay Kelly’s buyout of about $53 million, which is among the largest in the history of college sports.
Texas A&M’s $77 million buyout of former coach Jimbo Fisher, who was fired in 2023, is the largest.
Woodward was Texas A&M’s athletic director when Fisher was hired to coach the Aggies in December 2017. But Woodward already had been at LSU for two years when A&M, in 2021, gave Fisher a contract extension that effectively doubled the cost of his buyout.
Still, Landry assigned blame for Fisher’s buyout to Woodward.
“This is a pattern,” Landry said. “Right now, we’ve got a $53 million liability. … We are not doing that again.”
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