What new LSU president Wade Rousse said about the school's search for a new football coach

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BATON ROUGE — One of the buzz words surrounding an LSU athletics department in flux has been “alignment.”

After months of deliberation, one of the big dominos regarding the two full-time openings of the two most important positions within the school’s athletic department, head football coach and athletics director, fell. The LSU Board of Supervisors named Wade Rousse as the university president at a meeting Tuesday.

In recent days, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has inserted him into the conversation surrounding former LSU coach Brian Kelly’s firing, criticizing his contract with the school and his $54 million buyout, although that figure is being negotiated, officials said.

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Former LSU AD Scott Woodward drew public ire from Landry as the governor placed the blame of the Kelly’s lofty contract and terms on Woodward.

“The Board of Supervisors are going to come up with a committee and they are going to go find us a coach. The guy that’s here now that wrote that contract cost Texas A&M $77 million,” Landry said, speaking of Woodward at a recent press conference. “Right now, we got a $53 million liability. We are not doing that again. You know what? I believe that we’re going to find a great coach. Maybe we let President Trump pick (the new coach), he loves winners.

“I’m not going to be picking the next coach but I can promise you, we’re going to pick a coach and we’re going to make sure that coach is successful. And we’re going to make sure he’s compensated properly and we’re going to put metrics on it. I’m tired of rewarding failure in this country and leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill.”

In his first press conference after being named LSU president, Rousse said he is in alignment with the governor’s stance on a “metrics” based contract but realizes the “market is the market.”

“The governor loves Louisiana,” Rousse said. “He worries about Louisiana. But I think he’s smiling somewhere today because I have been told from several people that he was looking for strong leadership at LSU, so he could back away from any sort of micromanaging that he thought he needed to do in leadership transition or leadership void.

“So, I do support the idea that we’re going to try to base contracts on incentive base, or contracts are going to be based on incentives and how we win and how does that work and how we get paid based on winning. I’d like to think we could do that in our athletics contracts. We all know the market’s the market. We are very determined to go find the absolute best coach there is to come take the best coaching job in America and come lead us to our next national championship. We have a global brand that’s mostly driven by what happens in Tiger Stadium. There’s no doubt in our mind that we are going to get the fit to make that happen.”

LSU Board of Supervisors chairman Scott Ballard and Rousse said Rousse will be involved in the hiring of LSU’s next coach even though Rousse said his official start date as LSU president has yet to be determined.

LSU interim athletics director Verge Ausberry said on ESPN 104.5’s After Further Review radio show Tuesday afternoon that he’s happy to have Rousse among the committee charged with finding the next Tigers coach.

“I like for him to be part of this process,” Ausberry said. “I’ve already talked to Rousse about who we’re looking at and talking to. This is bigger than the athletic department, it’s the whole brand.”

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: New LSU president Wade Rousse discusses football coaching search

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