LSU doesn’t cheap out on hires, so almost anything seems on the table for this coaching search.
Urban Meyer, Nick Saban are typical pipe dream candidates. At LSU, pipe dreams can become reality.
Lane Kiffin for LSU? Now, that really makes sense.

Every coaching search starts in nearly the same fashion from the average fan’s perspective.

You think of your dream candidate. Let’s just say Urban Meyer. Because, well, Meyer or someone very much like him is often the average fan’s dream candidate.

Mr. Average Fan demands that the folks doing the hiring pull together some stupid money and “make Urban say no!” before moving on to other candidates.

Fast forward to the end of the search. The school hires some stiff who’s not named Urban Meyer, and not named Nick Saban, and the average fan knocks back a triple shot of copium and convinces himself this new coach isn’t so bad and that a national championship is just a few short years away.

Except, the stiff is actually a stiff. He’s fired within a few short years. The process repeats.

That’s how it usually unfolds, anyway.

But, now here’s LSU needing a coach, and I’m not rolling my eyes or laughing when I hear, “Make Urban (or Saban) say no!” I’m certainly not dismissing the idea of Lane Kiffin researching Baton Rouge’s top hot yoga studios.

If there’s one athletic director in America who’s proven he’s comfortable spending stupid money and forcing someone to say yes, it’s Scott Woodward at LSU.

LSU, Scott Woodward don’t hire cheap

Woodward’s responsible for the $75 million guaranteed offer that took Jimbo Fisher from Florida State to Texas A&M. He’s responsible for the $100 million offer (most of it guaranteed) that transported Brian Kelly from Notre Dame to LSU.

To be clear, those hires amount to money poorly spent. Stupid money became just stupid. Neither Fisher nor Kelly delivered the expected return on investment.

Woodward’s other hires using his swing-for-the-fences approach include LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey and baseball coach Jay Johnson. They’ve supplied national championships.

“Feel like there’s no limitation,” Woodward said of his hiring approach, while appearing last summer on the “Navigating Sports Business” podcast. “Go after the best you could get.”

I could make the very obvious rebuttal that, in the case of Fisher and Kelly, Woodward didn’t hire the best coach he could get. Perhaps, he just hired the most expensive one he could get.

One thing Woodward’s never done, from Washington to Texas A&M to LSU? Gone cheap.

With this school and this AD, pipe dream candidates can become reality.

LSU exactly the type of school to make Urban Meyer, Nick Saban say no

Gambling oddsmakers earmark Tulane’s Jon Sumrall as the favorite to land the job. I’d point out that when this job opened in 2021, Kelly wasn’t even included on the odds chart.

Woodward’s best football hires came at Washington. He sacked Tyrone Willingham and hired Steve Sarkisian. When Sarkisian left, Woodward made what remains his best hire. He nabbed Chris Petersen, whose starting pay dwarfed most of his mates in the Pac-12.

“If people (say), ‘Oh, you overpaid for something,’ well, how do you know that? I thought it through. Maybe I didn’t (overpay),” Woodward told me, in 2022, of his philosophy. “Or, I underpaid for something. (People) know the cost of it, but do they know the value of it?” 

“It’s always worked for me that the best predictors are usually past performances,” he added.

Years after Woodward left Texas A&M for LSU, the Aggies fired Fisher and replaced him with Mike Elko, a cheaper choice. Elko’s positioning to lift the Aggies to heights Fisher never reached. He’s proving what a great bang for the buck looks like.

Woodward’s misfires on Kelly and Fisher don’t mean, though, that he’ll reverse course and cheap out. Kiffin would be worthy of a lucrative offer.

Get past Kiffin, and I like Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, who’s currently making less than $6 million. Tulane’s Sumrall is building an SEC résumé. So, too, is Georgia Tech’s Brent Key.  

But, I’m wondering whether this search makes it that far.

Because, if LSU calls Saban (make sure to call Miss Terry, too) and Meyer, proceeds to Kiffin, then moves to Oregon’s Dan Lanning and Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, and it makes each say no, how far down the list would it make it before someone says yes?

Woodward’s just the type of guy who’d try to find out.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.