quote:
Kelly was the right hire. A proven coach who can navigate LSU the next 4-5 Years to a better spot.

It's not going to be a popular rebuild among the faithful. Also think it wise to give him the big contract to protect him from the fans.

While this may in fact prove to be the case, it will be an absolute disaster financially if it isn't.

Here's a quick rundown of Kelly's guaranteed payouts through the first four years of his contract, regardless of results on the field (figuring a $50,000 annual raise built into the deal, plus a $500,000 annual bonus if he's still LSU's HC on July 1 of every year):

2022: $ 9,000.000 (base salary)
2023: 9,550,000 (base + raise + longevity bonus)
2024: 9,600,000 (base + raise + longevity bonus)
2025: 9,650,000 (base + raise + longevity bonus)

This is of course not including an additional $500,000 bonus for a bowl invite in years they are eligible.

So, if LSU goes 5-7 (or worse) in the first 4 years of BK's contract, he will still have received $37,800,000 for his troubles - and this is NOT including the other perks of his deal ($1.2 million 0% interest home loan, car allowances, private plane usage, etc).

And then they would owe him 90% of the remaining 6 years on his deal, amounting to somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000,000 more.

tl;dr: this "proven coach" will make a MINIMUM of $88,000,000 over the next four seasons even if he fails miserably and never has a regular season over .500. Tack on another $500k for every year he manages to get them to a bowl - ANY bowl, no matter how minor.

And I thought AU's braintrust was foolish (well, they still are, but not to this epic level).

This post was edited on 9/6/22 at 8:42 am