LSU interim athletic director Verge Ausberry may have full authority to rent the Tigers’ subsequent soccer coach, and he instructed reporters Friday {that a} search committee has already been shaped to determine Brian Kelly’s alternative.
Ausberry, a former LSU linebacker who has been related to the college for greater than 30 years, is now main the athletics division after former athletics director Scott Woodward and the varsity mutually agreed to half methods Thursday.
“We’ll rent the very best soccer coach there may be,” Ausberry mentioned in a information convention Friday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “That is our job. We aren’t going to let this program fail. LSU needs to be within the playoffs yearly in soccer. There’s 12 groups that make it. It’ll increase right here. We’ve got to be a type of groups at LSU. No substitute.”
Woodward’s departure got here a day after Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry instructed reporters that Woodward would not be concerned in hiring Kelly’s alternative, saying he’d fairly let President Donald Trump do it.
The Tigers fired Kelly on Sunday, a day after they misplaced to Texas A&M 49-25 at house to drop to 5-3.
Whereas some have recommended that the political controversy surrounding the LSU athletics division shakeup would possibly scare away some potential candidates, Ausberry was assured the Tigers will discover the best coach.
“We’re LSU,” Ausberry mentioned. “This place shouldn’t be damaged. The athletic division shouldn’t be damaged. We win.”
Ausberry, the chief deputy athletic director beneath Woodward, is a member of the search committee, together with LSU Board of Supervisors chairman Scott Ballard and different board members and donors.
The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to pick out the following LSU president on Tuesday, however Ballard instructed reporters that would not have an effect on the seek for a brand new soccer coach.
McNeese State President Wade Rousse, College of Alabama Provost James Dalton and former College of Arizona President Robert Robbins are finalists for the place.
“We’re not slowing down for that,” Ballard mentioned. “Verge goes to maneuver ahead and is aware of what he must do. However, relying on how that works out and when the brand new president begins, the brand new president will completely have enter and hopefully hit the bottom working.”
Landry criticized Woodward for agreeing to a 10-year, $95 million contract with Kelly that included incentives and which left LSU on the hook for a $54 million buyout beneath the phrases of the deal.
In a press release Monday, Woodward mentioned the varsity would “proceed to barter his separation and can work towards a path that’s higher for each events.”
Landry held a gathering on the governor’s mansion Sunday evening to debate the legalities of firing Kelly and who would pay his hefty buyout.
In his information convention on the state capitol in Baton Rouge on Wednesday, Landry recommended that LSU’s new soccer coach would have a merit-based contract that would not embrace a large buyout. Ausberry mentioned he was instructed to search out the very best coach and never fear concerning the contract’s parameters.
Woodward, who had been LSU’s athletics director since 2019, is owed a buyout of greater than $6 million, sources instructed ESPN.
“The governor had a proper to be involved and we’re working in direction of options,” Board of Supervisors member John Carmouche instructed reporters Friday. “Every little thing’s on the desk. However let me make it clear: The state has by no means, and taxpayers have by no means paid for a coach and by no means will.”
Greater than something, Ausberry mentioned LSU has to get its soccer program again on observe. He walked the sphere in the course of the third and fourth quarters of final week’s sport and noticed that Tiger Stadium was half empty.
“It is not a very good factor,” Ausberry mentioned. “[Former Ohio State football coach] Woody Hayes all the time mentioned the worst phrase within the dictionary was ‘apathy.’ This program can’t have apathy, by no means or means. We’ve got to win. We’ve got to achieve success.”