By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Many LSU football coaches over the years have gone into a game thinking it might be their last because of a looming firing.
On Saturday, LSU (7-5) plays No. 21 Houston (9-3) in the Texas Bowl in Houston (8:15 p.m., ESPN) with five coaches knowing they will not be returning as LSU coaches next season. That’s because they have already been fired, effective as soon as this bowl ends, which will be near the time the clock strikes midnight.
New LSU coach Lane Kiffin did not retain interim coach/running backs coach Frank Wilson, offensive line coach Brad Davis, co-offensive coordinator/receivers coach Cortez Hankton, run game coordinator/tight ends coach Alex Atkins and defensive line coach Kyle Williams. Yet, all five of those coaches have continued to stay on to coach the Tigers during bowl practices and in Saturday night’s game.
Only Wilson as of yet has gotten another job. He will be running backs coach at Ole Miss, where Kiffin left the head coaching job on Nov. 29 and arrived at LSU the next day. Kiffin chose not to coach the Texas Bowl. The six offensive assistant coaches Kiffin brought from Ole Miss will also not coach in the Texas Bowl as they are continuing to coach the Rebels in the College Football Playoffs. Kiffin wanted to do that as well, but Ole Miss balked at that.
That half dozen includes the most recent hire – Ole Miss running backs coach Kevin Smith, whom Wilson replaced.
No, LSU has never played in a bowl under such a strange, seismic, coaching personnel shift.
“We want to finish what we’ve started with this football team in 2025,” Wilson said Friday. “We want to give them our undivided attention before transition happens.”
Wilson may obviously have mixed emotions, but LSU remains very important to the New Orleans native, who will be wrapping up his second stint as a Tigers assistant coach. He was LSU’s running backs coach and recruiting coordinator from 2010-15 before returning as associate head coach/running backs coach shortly after Brian Kelly was hired from Notre Dame following the 2021 season. Wilson replaced Kelly as interim coach on Oct. 26 when Kelly was fired.
“Any time you wear that helmet, there’s an expectation and a standard of going out and playing with high enthusiasm and fierce effort,” Wilson said. “I think you’ll get that from our football team.”
Wilson helped Kiffin keep some of the key, previously committed members of LSU’s 2026 signing class during the early signing period from Dec. 3-5 before he knew for sure he was not coming back.
LSU defensive coaches kept by Kiffin – coordinator Blake Baker, secondary coach Corey Raymond, safeties coach Jake Olsen and edge rushers coach Kevin Peoples have continued to coach the Tigers in practice and will be coaching the game.
LSU’s roster will also have this strange dynamic of comings and goings. The Tigers have been depleted somewhat by a dozen players either entering or considering entering the NCAA Transfer Portal. Some of them have stayed with the team and have practiced and may play or may not play. The latest player to say he will enter the portal is junior safety Javien Toviano.
Several of the players entering the portal did so because Kiffin and staff were not interested in keeping them, or not interested in keeping them at the same pay scale they were making under the previous staff.
Senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier will not play as he prepares for the NFL Draft while recovering from a painful abdomen injury that bothered him all season. But he is in Houston with the team.
Sophomore Michael Van Buren Jr. is expected to start with sophomore running back/receiver Ju’Juan Johnson as the backup, even though Johnson has entered the portal.
For LSU, it will be a strange mix of coaches and players staying and leaving, to say the least.
Wilson just hopes everyone remembers what they are coaching and playing for – LSU – regardless of what is next.
“Any time you put our brand on the field, it garners excitement,” Wilson said.
Even though that brand will be an off brand soon for so many wearing it Saturday.
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