As of 11:30 Thursday morning,LSUtechnically had two basketball coaches – the one administrators hadn't gotten around to technically firing and the one they fired four years ago after he refused to cooperate during anNCAAinvestigation. But the school wanted to rehire the former coach so badly that they couldn't even fire the first guy before making him an offer.
Got that? Right. It's a hot mess.
Because LSU.
In a world where college athletics seems to find new ways daily to lose their collegiality, LSU stands alone. It has made a history out of soaking itself in the stink of the bayou, performing its own theater of the absurd.
The latest is an all-timer even for a place where, in 1934, then-football coach Lawrence "Biff" Jones resigned his position because senator and future governor Huey Long tried to bust into the Tigers' locker room and lodge his complaints during halftime of a game against Oregon.
Like a divorced couple that can't quite quit each other – or, maybe more accurately, a couple that deserves each other –LSU and Will Wadeare back together after managing to make their reunion even messier than their very conscious uncoupling.
In 2022, after a protracted NCAA investigation that began with Wade discussing a "strong-ass" offer on an FBI wiretap, LSU finally canned the coach right before the NCAA tournament.
"We can no longer subject our University, Department of Athletics and – most importantly – our student-athletes, to this taxing and already-length process without taking action,'' then-university president William F. Tate and athletic director Scott Woodward announced in a joint statement. "Our responsibility to promote the integrity and well-being of our entire institution and our student-athletes will always be paramount.''
About that…
Since then, Tate left for the same position at Rutgers and Woodward resigned after the Louisiana governor publicly filleted him, saying that Woodward would not be in charge of selecting the next head football coach at LSU after firing Brian Kellyand owing him an enormous buyout.
Gov. Jeff Landry, who occasionally runs the state when he isn't meddling with the purple-and-gold, instead has installed Wade Rousse – the former president at McNeese State – into Tate's old digs, and has hired Heath Schroyer, the AD from McNeese, into the same role at LSU.
What do the two have in common? They went rogue and hired Wade after he was expelled from LSU, embracing the coach's renegade image in a video that portrayed the coach as an outlaw and ended with the tag, "Willy the Kid is free.''
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Free Willy has now extricated himself from yet another pesky entanglement. By one in the afternoon, LSU hashed out the messy details. Administrators gave Matt McMahon – who inherited Wade's post-NCAA scorched earth landscape and a roster of exactly zero players – the boot, and signed Wade to a seven-year deal. Or, if you like symmetry, a near one-to-one ratio of years to violations during his previous stay at LSU (he was initially charged with five Level I and one Level II violations).
Wade joins Lane Kiffin, lured away from Ole Miss in the midst of the College Football Playoff, and Kim Mulkey in an athletic department that trulydeserves its own reality TV show.It will be Wade's sixth stop in the last 13 years, none lasting longer than five seasons.
"I'll always be grateful for my time here,'' Wade said of his 367-day tenure at NC State and went on to cite how deeply personal the decision was because returning to LSU offered him a "chance to go home."
He was born in Nashville. He went to school at Clemson.
"I feel like I was lied to,'' NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan said in his press conference on Thursday.
Well, that's understandable.
The Wolfpack deserve no sympathy here. Aside from what might be best termed an accidental run to the 2024 Final Four, the Wolfpack has spent decades trying and failing to keep up with its Tobacco Road brethren. The school wanted to win, and Wade – with his seven NCAA tournament berths in eight seasons (discounting the Covid-19 season) offered the school the most direct route back to relevance.
"Will told me that he believes he can win at NC State and win big,'' Corrigan said in a statement when Wade was hired. "It didn't take me too many conversations with him to believe it too.''
Apparently, selling your soul comes with a price tag, and for NC State, it is yet another coaching search in exchange for a First Four flop.
The only winner in this whole sordid affair is McMahon.
He will receive a buyout. But, more importantly, he can get the hell out of the bayou.
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