LSU athletic director Scott Woodward resigned under pressure from the post he held for six years 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 a replacement for Kelly.
Woodward, a Baton Rouge native and LSU graduate, was hired as his alma mater’s athletic director in April 2019. Since then, LSU has won national championships in football, baseball (twice), women’s basketball and gymnastics.
“I would like to thank Mr. Scott for his service as athletic director over the past six years,” said Scott Ballard, president of the LSU Board of Supervisors. “He had a lot of success at LSU.
“We are now focused on moving our athletic department forward and putting LSU in the best position to reach its full potential.”
LSU executive assistant athletic director Virge Ausberry 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 far from LSU.”
“While others can summarize and comment on my tenure and decisions over the past six years as Director of Athletics, I will not do so,” Woodward said. “Rather, I would like to focus on the absolute joy that LSU Athletics brings to the residents of the state and the Baton Rouge community.”
When Woodward was hired in 2019, political commentator James Carville, who graduated from LSU, taught there, and was inducted into the school’s Manship School of Mass Communication Hall of Fame, hosted a welcome party for him at his New Orleans home.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday night, Mr. Carville, a Democrat, expressed disgust at the circumstances surrounding Mr. Woodward’s sudden resignation.
“The Governor of Louisiana and the LSU Board of Regents have tarnished the reputation of our university,” Carville said. “Laundry IQ is equivalent to the temperature of dishwater.
“The LSU Board of Governors is weak and pathetic,” Carville added. “This is not about my politics. This is about my university.”
Landry was asked about the coaching situation at LSU on Wednesday while hosting a press conference on government matters unrelated to LSU, and Woodward assured him that he would not be involved in selecting the next coach.
Under Woodward, the football program acquired former coach Ed Orgeron in 2021 for about $17 million, but now must pay Kelly about $53 million, the largest acquisition price in college sports history.
Texas A&M’s $77 million acquisition of former coach Jimbo Fisher, who was fired in 2023, is a record price.
Woodward was the athletic director at Texas A&M when Fisher was hired to coach the Aggies in December 2017. But when A&M gave Fisher a contract extension in 2021 that effectively doubled his acquisition cost, Woodward had already been at LSU for two years.
Still, Mr. Landry held Mr. Woodward responsible for purchasing Mr. Fisher.
“It’s a pattern,” Landry said. “Right now we’re $53 million in debt. … We’ll never do something like that again.”
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