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On Wednesday, the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, held a press conference at the state capitol to address the availability of food assistance for low-income families during the federal-government shutdown. A sign on the lectern read “PROTECTING THE MOST VULNERABLE.” But there were also other urgent matters to discuss, such as the firing of Louisiana State University’s football coach, Brian Kelly. Yes, Landry confirmed, he had been involved in the university’s decision to part ways with Kelly: last Sunday, he had hosted various L.S.U. officials at the governor’s mansion, a twenty-five-thousand-square-foot residence with twelve bedrooms and eighteen bathrooms. No, he went on, the university's athletic director, Scott Woodward, would not be hiring Kelly’s successor. The L.S.U. Board of Supervisors, which was partly appointed by Landry, would create a selection committee, and Woodward wouldn’t be on it. The Governor would make sure of that. “Maybe we’ll let President Trump pick it,” he added. (On Thursday, the school announced that Woodward had resigned as athletic director, too.)
This is hardly the first time a Louisiana governor has grandstanded about college football. Huey Long wrote L.S.U. fight songs. What’s stranger is that the rest of the college-football world seems to be following suit. Maybe Trump really is the man for the moment: more and more, college football resembles “The Apprentice.” The season has been filled with upsets, but most of the suspense so far concerns not who will inch up the rankings but which coach will get fired next.
There has been unprecedented turnover among coaches in college football’s upper echelon in the past two years. Turnover is common—the “hot seat” is an old trope for a reason—but power-conference schools don’t typically make changes before November. U.C.L.A., Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Colorado State, Oregon State, and Florida have all already fired their coaches this season. Penn State fired its coach, James Franklin, even though his team won about seventy per cent of their games, and last season made the semifinals of the College Football Playoff. Penn State began this season ranked No. 2 in the nation. But apparently it made more sense to pay Franklin nearly fifty million dollars not to coach than it did to watch him lose another close game to a top-ten opponent. (Franklin had a .160 winning percentage against those.)
According to CBS Sports, ten of the coaches fired so far this season are owed a combined hundred and seventy million dollars. Most of them are public employees. Soaring revenues—particularly from big television deals, at least for teams in the power conferences—help cover those salaries, and boosters help with the buyouts. And there are sometimes loopholes that limit the over-all size of a buyout. But the guaranteed salaries can strain even athletic departments with high revenues—and not every athletic department is quite as rich as it might seem. That hundred and seventy million will soon surely be higher. Michigan’s State’s coach may be toast. Coaches at Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, and Auburn are on the hot seat. And if Bill Belichick is still coaching at the University of North Carolina next season, it will only be because of the program’s demonstrated appetite for bottomless embarrassment.
Maybe no one is safe. Last season, Ohio State fans were calling for Ryan Day’s head, after Ohio State lost to Michigan. The Buckeyes went on to win the national championship. Alabama now looks like, well, Alabama, but after the Crimson Tide lost to Florida State in its opener, one ESPN analyst wondered whether their coach, Kalen DeBoer, would “survive September.” Florida State’s fans, meanwhile, are so unhappy with their coach—despite the win over Alabama—that the boosters are spending the rest of the season scrounging for money to pay Mike Norvell’s buyout. He’s owed upward of fifty million dollars.
Kelly, the former L.S.U. coach, for his part, went 34–14 during four years at the school, about as good a record as anyone could have reasonably expected. L.S.U. has three losses this season, all to teams currently ranked in the top ten. But Kelly is about as likable as you’d expect a Massachusetts man faking a Southern accent to be—and no self-respecting S.E.C. fan is ready to credit Vanderbilt, which beat L.S.U., 31–24, or Texas A. & M., which embarrassed L.S.U. “I think @LSUsports and the LSU Board of Supervisors needs to rethink their actions to raise ticket prices for next year after tonight’s showing!” Landry tweeted after the game. Landry is in an unusual position to influence L.S.U.’s coaching search because the university is currently without a president and the school’s Board of Supervisors is under his thumb. But that’s only a bayou twist on the what-the-hell-is-happening-in-college-football everywhere else.
