The pivotal year four has arrived for BK. LSU football czar Brian Keith Kelly has promised a national title and it’s time to deliver. It was in their fourth seasons that Paul Dietzel, Nick Saban and Ed Orgeron brought ultimate glory to TigerTown. Les Miles managed to reach the pinnacle in his third year.
The pressure is on BK to make LSU great again. But Kelly faces far less exposure to life’s unpleasantries than did Charles McClendon, who won more games than any LSU football coach and was sent packing after 18 years. He left a modest home on Menlo Drive without a multi-million buyout that Kelly enjoys with seven years remaining on his contract.
McClendon was 56 when Paul Dietzel provided him with a new Cadillac to get the hell out Death Valley and bring his 137 wins to Orlando. Kelly turns 64 in October and is on the LSU payroll until he reaches septuagenarian status.
Coach Kelly has achieved moderate success at LSU and has not broken the bank. Kelly has run a fiscally conservative operation with a surplus above $50 million a year. Former Athletic Director “Bottom Line” Bob Brodhead would have loved the results of the man from Massachusetts. Kelly pays his bills, fields exciting teams and wins a lot. He is in a similar spot as Bill Arnsparger was in 1986 after three years at the helm of the Tigers.
Kelly is 29-11 after three years at LSU. Arnsparger was 26-8-2 after three seasons. Arnsparger was 60 when he defected to Florida as athletic director and handed the LSU program to defensive coordinator Mike Archer, who posted a 10-1-1 record in his rooke year as head coach 1987.
Competing with the best teams in the land was good enough 40 years ago. Today the expectation is that LSU dominate the best of the best and soar to the top of the heap every few years. Kelly has fed that demand with bold predictions of success, but he is not Kim Mulkey who has a track record of four NCAA championships.
Kim is the Queen Bee until further notice and is permitted to soar as a fiscal liberal. Mulkey was nearly $9 million in the red last year, but she always contends for championships. LSU is one of only two schools in the country in which the women’s program is funded at higher levels than the men’s team. The other is South Carolina, and the Lady Gamecocks have defeated LSU on the women’s court 17 straight times.
It would be a public relations bonanza for Mulkey if she followed the lead of Kelly and provided $1 million in NIL money to help her program attract even more outstanding recruits. Kelly has set a wonderful example of financial responsibility for Kim to follow while Mulkey has shown Kelly that national championships become more reachable when coaches drain their accounts with the zeal of drunken sailors. If Kelly ran a program that was $9 million in red ink, he would have an additional $60 million a year at his disposal.
If LSU doesn’t win it all on the gridiron this season, Athletic Director Scott Woodward should implore his football coach to “Spend Baby, Spend.” The acronym in college athletics that is most important is ROI. In the current NIL and SEC landscape, you get what you pay for.
Otherwise, you must let another program fund your championship run.
Will Wade has Left Louisiana
Before Will Wade left McNeese State for North Carolina State after two years and a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances, the disgraced former LSU basketball coach was courted by some LSU insiders to return to the PMAC.
Wade guided LSU to a 105-51 record with one SEC title in five seasons from 2017-22. Wade improved a program that was 90-72 under Jonny Jones in the preceding five years and is 45-47 in three years under Matt McMahon.
LSU President Bill Tate fired Wade after an explosive NCAA report detailing recruiting chicanery of the worst kind, but much of what Wade did is now legal in his profession. The new environment had at least one LSU Board member reportedly bending the ear of Gov. Landry in hopes of returning Wade to Baton Rouge. Ultimately, there were too many roadblocks to pave the way for Will’s redemption tour.
Wade is candid if nothing else. The controversial coach did not complain when he graced a Tiger Rag cover with the caption, “American Gangster.” He and Dale Brown were not friends and had different styles. Both men were peripatetic creatures, who relentlessly pursued the national basketball championship that has eluded the men’s program since the spring of1935 when Huey Long was alive and Dale Brown was not.
Wade gets a six-year contract to assume control of a Wolfpack program that won NCAA titles in 1983 under Jim Valvano and in 1974 under Norm Sloan, who succeeded Press Maravich at Raleigh in 1966.
Wade is likely to compete for national championships at NC State. He remains young at 42, and he is an elite coach.
Only three LSU head basketball coaches have SEC records above .500 in conference play. Despite 11 SEC championships, it is a tough place to win consistently. Harry Rabenhorst, Dale Brown, John Brady, Trent Johnson and Will Wade are the five LSU men’s coaches to win SEC season titles.
Here is a list of the 11 LSU coaches and the number of conference wins above and below .500 with them leading the basketball Bengals.
Harry Rabenhorst: 1925-57… 57 games above .500…215-158 record…3 SEC titles.
Jay McCreary: 1957-65…32 games below .500…41-73 record….0 SEC titles.
Frank Truitt: 1965-66…12 games below .500…2-14….0 SEC titles.
Press Maravich: 1966-72… 18 games below .500…45-63 record…0 SEC titles.
Dale Brown: 1972-97… 38 games above .500…238-200 record… 4 SEC titles.
John Brady: 1997-08…19 games below .500…74-93…. 2 SEC titles.
Butch Pierre; 2008…….. 0 games above .500…5-5 record…0 SEC titles.
Trent Johnson: 2008-12… 14 games below .500… 25-39…1 SEC title.
Johnny Jones: 2012-17… 6 games below .500…. 42-48… 0 SEC titles.
Will Wade: 2017-22… 22 games above .500….55-33…1 SEC title.
Matt McMahon: 2022-25…21 games below .500…14-35…0 SEC title.
Total: 1925-2025….756-761…5 games below .500….11 SEC titles.
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