The "college football is in crisis!" crowd is probably short of breath this morning, wrote Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
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After all, LSU has handed Lane Kiffin a seven-year, $91 million contract to run the program, locking in $13 million per year as the baseline. And that is just the starting point.
According to the full term sheet obtained by Wilson Alexander of the New Orleans Advocate, Kiffin is guaranteed to become the highest-paid coach in the sport if he delivers a national championship. Georgia's Kirby Smart currently holds that crown at $13.8 million per year.
LSU also agreed to pay Kiffin the Playoff bonuses he would have earned at Ole Miss based on the Rebels' performance in the College Football Playoff.
The buyout terms are equally eye-opening. If LSU fires Kiffin without cause, he will receive 80 percent of the remaining money owed, with no offsets tied to future jobs.
Add that to the $54 million buyout LSU already owes Brian Kelly — an amount the school tried and failed to trim by delaying his dismissal and floating "for cause" language — and this becomes roughly a $145 million swing for the Tigers.
That number could shrink slightly if LSU ever pulls the plug on Kiffin, but only by the 20 percent written into the contract.
Whether the deal includes a Louisiana-accent incentive remains unclear. We will find out soon enough, possibly when Kiffin strolls into an LSU basketball game to test-drive his first "Geaux Tigers!"
