Another week, another high-profile college football head coaching job has opened up. The newest opening, though, is one of the top jobs in the sport.
LSU fired head coach Brian Kelly on Sunday night, ending his tenure in the midst of his fourth season following the Tigers’ blowout loss to Texas A&M to drop to 5-3 on the season. While Kelly wasn’t able to lead LSU to the College Football Playoff in any of his four seasons in Baton Rouge, Joel Klatt believes that the job is one of the three best in the sport.
“This is the best job available. Period. In fact, I would put LSU in the top three jobs in all of college football. I firmly believe it’s in the top three, but I don’t think you can argue it’s not in the top five,” Klatt said on the most recent episode of his podcast, “The Joel Klatt Show.” “I think you could argue 30% of the top 10 jobs are open. But LSU is the cream of the crop. I think Texas and Ohio State are better jobs than LSU, but not by much.”
The other two jobs that Klatt argued could be more high-profile than the LSU gig are Alabama and Georgia. However, Klatt believes that LSU has a financial advantage that those schools don’t have.
“LSU’s got a lot of resources, probably deeper resources than everyone realizes,” Klatt said. “Probably No. 1 or 2 in resources. So, money won’t be a factor in this.”
Who should LSU call to be their next head coach? 🤔
LSU is set to pay a hefty sum to move on from Kelly and take on another financial hit to hire a new head coach. Kelly’s estimated $54 million buyout is the second-largest in college football history, and that’s before taking into account the severance that must be paid to his coaching staff.
While Kelly wasn’t able to lead LSU to a national championship, the program’s recent history shows that success is attainable. Each of the Tigers’ three head coaches before Kelly — Nick Saban, Les Miles, and Ed Orgeron — won a national title during their respective tenures, proving that LSU has consistently been capable of reaching the sport’s highest level.
So, Klatt believes that LSU will make four big calls for its next head coach hire, and one of the four will end up accepting the job offer. Here’s Klatt’s list of the four candidates for the LSU job.
Calls No. 1 & 2: Former Florida/Ohio State HC Urban Meyer, former LSU/Alabama head coach Nick Saban
Yup, you read that right. Klatt thinks that LSU athletic director Scott Woodward’s first two calls should be, and will be, to Meyer and Saban.
“There’s going to be two people who are going to get calls. I think LSU is going to force them to turn down $15 million per year. That’s Urban Meyer and Nick Saban,” Klatt said. “I think you have to make that call. If I’m the AD, I have to make that call to both of those gentlemen.”
Of course, Meyer and Saban are both retired, but they’re also two of the greatest coaches the sport has ever seen. They’re among just four head coaches to win multiple national championships since the turn of the century — and the only two to do so at separate schools.
Obviously, Saban also has a prior history with the LSU program. He was the Tigers’ head coach for five seasons (2000-04), leading them to a national championship in 2003 and going 48-16 during his tenure. That preceded Saban’s time at Alabama, where he had the greatest run ever for a head coach in the sport by winning six national championships in 17 seasons.
Nick Saban began a streak of three straight LSU coaches to win a national championship with the Tigers’ victory in 2003 season. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Meyer doesn’t have the ties to LSU that Saban has. However, he’s proven he can be highly successful in the SEC, winning two national championships over his six seasons at Florida.
Even if it feels highly unlikely either would jump back into coaching, it’s pretty clear that going after either Saban and Meyer would be the two biggest swings you could take if you’re LSU. And Klatt believes it’s “no harm, no foul” for LSU if both turn the job down.
“If they both turn me down, great, we’re going to have a lengthy and quality discussion about candidates they really like across the country and the coaches they’ve either worked with or coached against that they like,” Klatt said. “That’s a list that would really help me if I’m the athletic director.
“Then, you go to the more feasible ones, although, who knows, maybe one of those guys will be the next head coach at LSU.”
Call No. 3: Oregon HC Dan Lanning
If you can’t land one of the best coaches in the history of the sport, Klatt thinks LSU will go after one of the next best things: the best head coach under the age of 40.
“The next call I think that’s going to be made is going to be Dan Lanning,” Klatt said. “Dan Lanning obviously has a past in the SEC, and he’s been successful there as a coordinator of the national champion Georgia team in 2021.
“Then, he goes to Oregon and he’s been very successful in building them into a perennial power. Last season, they were the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. He recruits well out of the portal. He recruits well out of high school. He has great energy. Dan Lanning’s a home run.”
As Klatt said, Lanning, 39, already has a successful track record. Georgia’s defense in 2021 was historically good en route to winning the national championship, and he’s quickly transformed Oregon into a perennial national championship contender. He’s gone 42-7 so far in his Oregon tenure, leading the Ducks to an undefeated season through the Big Ten Championship Game last year and has them out to a 7-1 start this year.
Dan Lanning led Oregon to a conference championship in the Ducks’ first season in the Big Ten. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
But if LSU inquires about Lanning, this wouldn’t be his first dance with a high-profile head coaching opening. That’s why Klatt is skeptical that Lanning will be Kelly’s successor at LSU, even if it makes him a historic offer.
“Oregon will probably have to match a $15 million per year offer. I think that’s where LSU is going to have to be if they’re talking about Urban Meyer, Nick Saban or Dan Lanning,” Klatt said. “If Dan doesn’t leave, and I know Dan really likes it in Eugene. Just a couple of years ago, he turned down Alabama. He’s turned down this level of job prior. His family likes it in Oregon and I think he loved the autonomy in Oregon.
“He’s building something very special and very well might end in a national championship this year. I think they’ve got that caliber of team this year with Dante Moore at quarterback and that defense.”
On top of the possibility of Lanning turning it down, Klatt’s point that Oregon seems poised to make a deep playoff run creates another potential problem for LSU. If Oregon winds up playing in the CFP quarterfinal or later, LSU would have to wait until at least January to possibly hire him as head coach, which would defeat the purpose of firing Kelly months in advance of the early signing period and the transfer portal window.
Call No. 4: Ole Miss HC Lane Kiffin
Klatt believes that Kiffin would be the final call LSU would have to make in its head coaching search, saying that he has some leverage entering the carousel.
“This is why Lane Kiffin is going to be such a hot commodity. If you look around right now, I said three of the top 10 jobs in college football are now open,” Klatt said. “I can’t remember a cycle in which we’ve had this many high-profile jobs open, ready, willing to spend money and spend big. Yet, I can’t remember as thin of a talent pool in the coaching search. Lane and Dan Lanning are going to be at the top of everybody’s list.”
Following a disastrous end to his tenure at USC, Kiffin has turned his career around and has proven he can coach at the highest level in the SEC. He’s 51-19 over his six seasons at Ole Miss, winning 10-plus games in three of the last four years and is off to a 7-1 start this year as it appears the Rebels are on track to make the CFP.
And if LSU is willing to pay $15 million per year for its next head coach, that would be a $6 million raise from what Kiffin is making at Ole Miss ($9 million per year), according to USA Today. That number would also make him the highest-paid head coach in the sport by nearly $2 million per year.
Will Lane Kiffin replace Brian Kelly at LSU? If he does, it would likely come with a hefty pay raise. (Photo by Gus Stark/LSU/University Images via Getty Images}
When you combine the resources LSU has and Kiffin’s success at Ole Miss, they might be a perfect fit for each other.
“What didn’t work with Brian Kelly at LSU wasn’t the fact that he wasn’t a good football coach. It was the fact that he wasn’t a good fit at LSU,” Klatt said. “Candidly, we all knew it his first week on the job when he gave us that fake accent. We’ll never be able to unhear that. Every time I saw him, that’s all I thought of and I tried not to. The guy’s the all-time winningest coach at Notre Dame.
“You don’t make this hire to win the press conference. You have to get a guy that fits your program, fanbase and what you want to do at LSU. You can go take a huge swing, but if it’s the wrong swing, you’re going to be sitting back here in three or four years doing the same thing over again.”
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