Even before he arrived at LSU, athletics director Scott Woodward has been known as a big-game hunter.
He hired Chris Petersen away from Boise State while at Washington, picked up Jimbo Fisher and Buzz Williams while at Texas A&M, and since arriving at LSU in 2019, he has made his splashiest hires yet.
In football, he poached [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] from a blue blood Notre Dame program. In women’s basketball, he convinced [autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] to return to her home state after winning three national titles and Baylor, and in baseball, he hired [autotag]Jay Johnson[/autotag], a successful head coach at Arizona.
Since then, the latter two have won national titles.
Speaking to Paul Finebaum while at the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Florida, Woodward revealed the key to bringing successful coaches on board.
“Two things that are really important to me, Paul, and they’re obvious,” Woodward said, per On3. “One of them is their past record. Now, Kim (Mulkey) has been a winner everywhere she’s been, whether it’s valedictorian of her high school class or winning at a junior level in little league softball with the boys, or even through college as an Olympian. Everything she’s done, she’s won. Brian Kelly, same thing. Won at Grand Valley State. Won at Cincinnati. Won at Notre Dame. It’s hard to screw that up.
“Then, the second thing that’s really important to me is I try to hire guys that are a lot smarter than me. Really high IQs. Kim is smart as hell. BK is smart as hell. Jay Johnson, you know. They have that and I kind of think that when you have that formula that you just feel it. That’s just how I’ve always done it and I kind of focus on it in a big way.”
While Kelly and men’s basketball coach [autotag]Matt McMahon[/autotag], who Woodward also hired, are still seeking national titles, it’s hard to deny Woodward’s track record when it comes to head coaching moves.
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