The wild feud between Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and LSU athletic director Scott Woodward was a long time coming.
After Woodward fired LSU football coach Brian Kelly last week, Landry blasted Woodward in a press conference and declared that he wouldn’t be involved in hiring the next coach.
Landry and Woodward have long been at odds, according to Yahoo Sports, with Landry holding a “personal vendetta” against Woodward.
After LSU athletic administrators decided they were firing Kelly, Landry held a meeting at the governor’s mansion with donors and select university administrators to authorize the decision, the outlet reported.
And at that meeting, Landry strongly expressed his desire to have Woodward fired, per the report.
“He’s got it out for him,” a Louisiana political figure told Yahoo Sports. “This governor picks fights and he never forgets a slight.”
Some of that is because Woodward, a former political lobbyist, is more progressive than the conservative Landry.
Soon after Landry was sworn in in 2024, he became combative with the school over a number of disagreements.
First, while speaking on Fox News, Landry criticized LSU’s women’s basketball team for remaining in the locker room while the national anthem played during an NCAA tournament game.
He declared it a sign of disrespect to the country and threatened to revoke athletic scholarships.
Later that year, he was adamant on restoring the school’s tradition of parading a live tiger around the field before football games, which the school had stopped a number of years ago.
Landry had a Bengal tiger transported from Florida and paraded around the field before a game while the school’s actual real live tiger mascot was not used.
Those two decisions left the school “angry, scarred and embarrassed,” Yahoo Sports reported.
Then this year, Landry urged Woodward and school administrators to hire back Will Wade to coach the basketball team, according to the outlet.
Wade coached LSU during a successful five-year run between 2017-2022, recording a 105-51 record and bringing the Tigers to three NCAA tournaments.
But he then became embroiled in an NCAA investigation for paying players, and Woodward subsequently fired him.
He found success and rehabilitated his image with McNeese State the past two years, which earned him a job at NC State.
But as LSU finished a disappointing year last season under Matt McMahon, Landry urged Woodward to fire him and bring back Wade, which Woodward refused, Yahoo Sports reported.
And now just last week, Landry publicly slammed Woodward for giving Kelly his “terrible” contract that resulted in a $54 million buyout needing to be paid.
