Will Wade’s motivation to return to the scene of his greatest accomplishment and worst defeat was a desire to come home. He was the toast of TigerTown in 2019 when he was exposed as a serial transgressor of NCAA rules. This is the place where his team captured the SEC title in 2019 and fans roared “Free Will Wade” over his suspension. LSU President King Alexander and AD Joe Alleva required police protection to leave their own arena. They didn’t survive the year as a posse assembled at Juban’s for the Monday night massacre.
Wade’s new cohort, Lane Kiffin, arrived in Baton Rouge in search of home since he has never lived anywhere more than five years at one time.
The nomadic son of a coach has had addresses in Lincoln, Fayetteville, Raleigh, Green Bay, Buffalo, Minneapolis, New York City, Fresno, Fort Collins, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Oakland, Knoxville, Los Angeles again, Tuscaloosa, Boca Raton, Oxford and Baton Rouge in his 51 years.
Lane is a man on the move and can say with assurance, “I’ve been everywhere, man.” The Johnny Cash song is an appropriate theme for the coach who has cultivated his share of critics with his peripatetic ways. A suggestion for theme music is that LSU will replace the Garth Brooks tune “Calling Baton Rouge” with the Eagles’ classic “Life in the Fast Lane.” Garth is too chunky to be associated with Kiffin, who is in the smooth Don Henley style. Brooks is no hot yoga afficionado.
It is a sign of the new age of high dollar coaches that Wade revels in the role of prodigal son at 43. And Kiffin is America’s hottest coach despite two firings and two abrupt departures from football command posts he directed for other SEC original members. The brass at UT and Ole Miss thought their charismatic hire would lift them back to national prominence. They were jilted and will grimace as Kiffin leads the Tigers to Neyland Stadium and Vaught-Hemingway in a few months.
Kiffin is a striking presence in the mold of Paul Dietzel, who towered above superhuman star Billy Cannon. Dietzel made imprudent moves and spoiled his great potential. After leading LSU to a national title at 34 and leaving Louisiana with his second SEC title at 37, Dietzel migrated to West Point and to South Carolina. Struggles at Army and the other USC dropped his overall record to 109-95-5. Tall Paul is suspiciously missing from the College Football Hall of Fame.
After Kiffin was fired at LAX five games into the 2013 season by Southern Cal Athletic Director Pat Haden, four years passed before a head coaching opportunity brought Kiffin to Florida Atlantic. He was 26-13 in three years. Kiffin has now lived in America’s two largest cities with initials B.R…Boca Raton and Baton Rouge.
Six years at Oxford resuscitated Kiffin. His record at Ole Miss was 55-19 (.743 percent). Overall, LK is an impressive 116-53, but his winning percentage of .686 is lower than the ledger of Les Miles at LSU. Miles was 114-34 (.750) and he was sent on his way after a 2-2 start in 2016.
Frank Williams Wade is eight years younger than his football counterpart and has moved from Clemson to Harvard to Virginia-Commonwealth, Chattanooga, back to VCU, LSU, McNeese, North Carolina State and LSU again in two decades.
Sixty years ago, LSU hired the head basketball coach at NC State in Press Maravich. He brought his son with him and Pete Maravich has reigned as the leading scorer in major college hoops for 56 years. Press was fired after six seasons and left LSU with a record of 76-86. His mark at Raleigh was 38-13 and he was succeeded there by Norm Sloan, who took the 1974 NCAA Championship, ending the eight-year reign of UCLA’s John Wooden.
Kiffin also has a connection with NC State. His father was defensive coordinator under Lou Holtz at Arkansas when he landed the Wolfpack assignment. His predecessor was Bo Rein, who became head coach at LSU on Nov. 30, 1979, and died 42 days later in a mysterious plane crash. Lane was four when his dad was hired and seven when he departed the ACC in 1982 with a 16-17 overall record.
The stakes are huge for LSU with an enormous investment in two fellows with mercurial reputations. Kiffin and Wade provide box office bonanza and substantial risk at a university that has delivered more than $80 million in buyouts to coaches and administrators receiving compensation for not working.
As LSU celebrates its 100th anniversary at the current campus, the physical plant is eroding while turnstiles sing at athletic events with an audacious half-billion-dollar arena planned despite a capacity three thousand fans below the PMAC threshold.
LSU cannot afford another Brian Kelly debacle. Kiffin and Wade are solid hires. Both recognize vast opportunity coupled with loads of minefields in TigerTown. LSU has collected three national titles and five SEC football championships in the 21st Century. Yet the last three full-time coaches have been fired with a combined record from Miles, Kelly and Ed Orgeron of 199-68 (.745 percent).
Only Nick Saban escaped the bayou with his dignity. He arrived at Alabama in 2007 after going 15-17 in two seasons with the Miami Dolphins. Saban was 206-29 (.877 percent) in 17 seasons with the Tide with six national titles and nine SEC crowns. With the tradition and investment of LSU and the pedigree and track record of Kiffin, the Saban standard is the output expected from Lane Kiffin by LSU’s demanding fan base.
Wade arrives with outsized expectations, as well. Huey Long was alive when LSU men’s basketball last won national honors. The program flourished from 1979-93 under Dale Brown with four SEC titles and a pair of Final Four appearances. John Brady was an able successor to Brown and led the Bengals to two SEC championships and the 2006 Final Four. Since then, LSU has not come close to the pinnacle of March Madness.
Wade was 105-51 in six years. His 2019 squad advanced to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. He was sent on his way by President Bill Tate and AD Scott Woodward who are no longer employed by the Ole War Skule. When he left, Wade joined Brown as the only coaches in the modern era to guide LSU to overall winning records in the SEC.
Dietzel learned in 1982 when he was fired after returning as athletic director, it is a Herculean challenge to rekindle past magic. Wade may achieve that elusive quest while Kiffin is the best candidate in the country to be the next Saban. Still, success often elicits equal quantities of adulation, temptation and hubris.
The previously mentioned Don Henley noted in “Hotel California” that “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” When it is time to go at LSU, a wise man once surmised there is one reality.
Nobody leaves happy.
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