**Allow me to tell you a story. The following is a work of fiction, until events prove/disprove the veracity of its truth. Any resemblance to actual real-world events should be taken as purely coincidental. **

Amongst the coaching fraternity and their agents, there are few things that are worse than threatening the financial security of coaches and their families.

The legal instrument known as the contractual buyout exists for the financial security of the coaches and their families. In LSU’s case, they heavily relied upon a large buyout in order to entice a proven coach from Notre Dame to leave a much easier and more secure job for one that would be much tougher.

This came in the form of a $55M buyout. CBK knew that LSU would be an extremely difficult place to keep a job since the track record had proven that even he could even win a national championship one year but be gone one year later. If and when that happened, CBK would have to take a lesser job and would be unlikely to obtain a top tier coaching job again due to his age.

That buyout, however, promised him and his family generational wealth whether he succeeded or failed.

When LSU signaled its intent to not pay the buyout, it was considered a ghastly breach in the world of coaches and their agents. CBK had already called his agent, of course, to come to the rescue.

His agent is Trace Armstrong of Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

Then, all hell broke loose. The governor made a point of grandstanding about the buyout and the AD at LSU left his position immediately. The governor had already painted himself in a corner.

At some point, Kelly’s agent (Trace Armstrong) cooked up a plan with another agent at CAA- enter one named Jimmy Sexton. They absolutely, positively could NOT ALLOW a governor to politically grandstand over a buyout they negotiated. The nonpayment of the buyout would directly cost CAA an estimated $2 million (perhaps a bit more). Even worse, LSU’s success in this endeavor would undermine their entire business.

The problem they had was that LSU had not formally terminated CBK. Instead, they had placed him on administrative leave in order to search thru everything (files, cell phones, computers) in order to find a legally legitimate violation for which they could terminate CBK “for cause.” In other words, they were going to place CBK on leave while they conducted a witch-hunt. There was little doubt they could find something- enough at least to get the job done in the State of Louisiana where the judge and jury would almost certainly be more concerned with LSU’s win-loss record than any notion of true justice.

They needed the Board of Trustees to formally terminate CBK for cause but to do so quickly and before they could carefully construct a more legitimate case for terminating CBK.

The way to do this consisted of two simple steps:

1) Convince LSU that they could obtain a great coach

2) Make that coach so expensive that they could not reasonably and simultaneously afford both the buyout of CBK and the new coach.

3) Convince LSU that the time to strike was now - there was no later.

4) Convince that prospective coach that would serve as the bait to play along- enter Coach Lane Kiffin

5) Have CLK engage in certain activities- the purpose of which would be to convince LSU that they had “their guy”- that were technically not worthy of termination at his current institution but which were a serious breach of decorum.

6) Convince LSU that the deal was “done” save for the final signature.

7) Make it appear that the only reason the pen had not hit the signature line was due to the prop had not been paper was due to CLK’s deep desire to coach his team in the playoffs.

8) Ultimately, pull the rug from LSU and publicly humiliate both the institution and the governor.

9) Ensure that LSU gets no access to any of the coaches they represent (which is virtually all of them) until the buyout is paid in full and certain “other” punitive conditions are met. I will not be discussing those here.

For his part, CLK would get the following:

1) The man who had been a villain to do many would become a hero ((outside of Louisiana, of course)).

2) He would become the highest paid coach in CFB

3) He would be able to inflict untold damage on his current rival and permanent SEC opponent

4) Ultimately, the fan base at his current school would understand his “heel turn” had only been the way things appeared. All would be forgiven.

Please remember- all of this should be considered fiction until such time and events dictate that it is truth.

P.S.-

For LSU, congrats on the victory over WKU last weekend. You may not beat them next year or the next or the next but you definitely got the better of them this year!

For CBK- you are a class act (except for the twerking- you should really not do that again). May you and your family enjoy your retirement (if that’s what you choose to do).