Gov. Jeff Landry has penned an op-ed arguing that a “broken system” for college athletics is responsible for unreasonable spending on football by universities — and the drama around LSU hiring former Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin.
“I had no idea how broken college athletics is until very recently, when I was pulled into LSU’s football program,” Landry wrote in RealClearPolicy, a national domestic policy publication. “I learned way more than I ever wanted to know about how college football operates and frankly, the way the sport is run is a complete mess.”
Landry called for centralized governance to determine when players sign, when they can transfer, how coaches move and “set spending caps, so schools aren’t spending themselves into insolvency.”
He also suggested unifying college football’s media rights, which he said would bring in more revenue to be distributed proportionally across conferences.
“This is a national crisis, not a local one. And only Washington has the authority to create a real solution,” Landry wrote. “We need the President to urge Congress to pass targeted legislation that will fully fix this broken system.”
Landry made national sports headlines with fiery comments in October after former LSU coach Brian Kelly was fired. He blasted the size of coaches’ contracts and buyouts, and publicly rebuked then-athletic director Scott Woodward, who parted ways with the school soon after.
LSU went on to hire Kiffin on a seven-year, $91 million contract, which pays more per year than Kelly’s deal.
In the op-ed, Landry criticized the college football recruiting calendar, which he said “forces teams to make coaching and roster decisions during a tight in-season window each year.” The early signing period for high school prospects went from Dec. 3-5, and the transfer portal opens Jan. 2-16.
“A school that loses a coach late in the season may have only days to find a new one before high school recruits sign and college players jump into the transfer portal,” he wrote. “This compressed timeline is what causes schools to pay huge buyouts and poach other schools’ coaches before the season is over.”
Kiffin and Landry spoke during the hiring process.
Acknowledging the drama that came with plucking a coach from a playoff-bound team, Landry wrote: “It makes no sense. But to those critical of LSU’s coaching search and my role in it, I say: don’t hate the player, hate the game! We did what we had to.”