We had The Purple Wedding at LSU the other day with the defensive coaching staff (GoT reference, since many probably won't understand that).
Hired Missouri's DC, who coached LBs at LSU in 2021. Honestly not who I was hoping for, but it's not like we were going to get the people on my short wish-list, and when you wait until now to make moves, the hiring pool of coaches is pretty shallow. Definitely not a "splashy" hire, but the positive is I figure he literally can't be worse than what we had this year.
Remains to be seen who we'll go after for position coaches. I think the rumors are pretty well confirmed now that we're interested in pulling Texas' DL coach, Bo Davis. Doesn't appear that Davis is interested however, and that likely won't happen.
Also rumors about bringing Corey Raymond home to coach DBs, and it's no secret Raymond wants to come back to BR. While he was the best DB coach in the nation for a long stretch, imo, and produced multiple high NFL picks and recruits extremely well, I have to note his final two years at LSU (2020 and 2021) began the dropoff on defense and the secondary was as much to blame as anyone. Which resulted in him not being retained by Kelly. He went to Florida, where DBs have also struggled under his watch. Corey-Raymond-Prime....I'm all in. Is he the same coach he used to be? I'm not sure, and so I don't know how I feel about bringing him home.
Switching to a related topic....how common is it for the board to have to approve contracts? Especially for position coaches. We might have lost OC Denbrock anyway, since Notre Dame puts him so much closer to family and he has more history with coaches there than he has with Kelly. But LSU offered him an extension, which he agreed to, but then LSU f'd around and never actually put it in front of him to sign. We're told that the Board of Regents had to sign off (literally) on the contract and they couldn't be bothered to stop their Thanksgiving-thru-New-Year's revelries long enough to meet and complete the paperwork. Notre Dame swooped in with a more tangible offer, signed and ready, waved it in his face, and he signed it and hit the road. I would've thought an Athletic Director's approval is all you need for a new contract for a position coach. Is this how it works at your school? Many are the times I've found out that Louisiana's political shenanigans cause unique red tape situations at LSU, and I'm wondering if this is one of them. It's possible the Board just cost us a great OC, and I can't imagine it's sitting well with Kelly, or even the AD, who took all the steps they could to retain the guy.
Will be a very different looking staff next year. We'll see how it goes.
