LSU Agrees to Pay Brian Kelly Full $54M Buyout, Ending Lawsuit

Former LSU coach Brian Kelly has a multimillion-dollar buyout to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

LSU has agreed to pay Kelly, its former head football coach, the full amount of his buyout, estimated at between $53 million and $54 million.

Wade Rousse, the university’s president, sent a letter to Kelly’s attorneys Wednesday evening informing them that they agreed Kelly had been fired without cause—the designation needed to trigger his buyout. The letter, in essence, confirmed that LSU would pay him the full $54 million amount, a source familiar with the matter told Front Office Sports.

The letter added that as long as Kelly actively pursued a new coaching position—referencing the terms of his offset clause—he would be owed the full amount. 

The letter ends a monthlong saga following Kelly’s firing, during which the school tried to get out of paying the full buyout, prompting Kelly to file a lawsuit. The lawsuit will be dropped Monday, the source said. 

The Shrinking Buyout

LSU fired Kelly at the end of October after a lopsided loss to Texas A&M. The school owed him $54 million worth of a buyout, to be paid monthly in equal six-figure installments. Kelly’s contract did include an offset and duty to mitigate clause, meaning that he was contractually obligated to search for a similar job—and that once he received one, LSU would only owe him the difference between his new salary and the terms of the buyout. 

Initially, the school said in writing that it was working on a “separation agreement,” offering Kelly lesser amounts in lump sums—a relatively common procedure among college coaching fires. Court documents suggest those offers were for $25 million and $30 million, which Kelly rejected, though he said he was open to other offers.

But after the meddling of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who lambasted the buyout, a leadership shakeup at the athletic director position, and the hiring of a new university president, the school appeared to get out of the buyout altogether. LSU and Gov. Landry told “several parties” that they did not intend to pay the full buyout, the source said. 

Kelly Digs In

Kelly then hired high-powered law firm Skadden Arps to represent him. His lawyers then set a firm deadline for LSU to confirm he had been fired without cause, the source said. But during a call with his representation on Nov. 10, LSU said it “believed grounds for termination for cause existed,” according to court documents. 

The distinction was important because if a coach is fired “for cause,” meaning a coach commits a crime or fails to report wrongdoing, the school doesn’t owe the coach a buyout. They only owe the coach a buyout if he’s fired “without cause,” meaning their performance was subpar.

Kelly filed a lawsuit hours after the meeting seeking a declaratory judgment that he was, in fact, fired without cause. Then, two weeks later, Rousse sent the letter to Kelly’s lawyers agreeing to the designation. The case will be closed Monday, and LSU will pay Kelly his buyout.

It’s still possible, however, that LSU won‘t have to pay Kelly the full amount if he gets another job, though he’d have to earn quite a high salary.