{"id":28457,"date":"2025-10-31T19:49:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/28457\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T19:49:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:49:28","slug":"gov-desantis-should-ban-coach-buyouts-not-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/28457\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. DeSantis should ban coach buyouts, not books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Running off at the typewriter. \u2026<\/p>\n

Normally, I don\u2019t want<\/a> politicians anywhere near sports.<\/p>\n

Most of them can\u2019t even manage a budget, much less a football program.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to the fiscal lunacy of college coaching contracts \u2014 the kind of waste that makes Congress look thrifty \u2014 then by all means, hand them a whistle and a headset.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis should take a page out of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry\u2019s<\/a> playbook.<\/p>\n

Because Landry just did something downright refreshing: he told LSU Athletic Director Scott Woodward that he won\u2019t be allowed to pick the Tigers\u2019 next football coach.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right,\u00a0 the governor is actually benching his athletic director. And after what Woodward\u2019s done, it\u2019s hard to argue.<\/p>\n

Woodward\u2019s track record reads like a master class in burning booster money. He\u2019s the guy who hired Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M \u2014 you know, the coach who got fired and still walked away with a record $77 million in contract buyout money. Then Woodward came to LSU, hired Brian Kelly, and when that didn\u2019t work out \u2026 boom \u2014 another $53 million buyout.<\/p>\n

Translation: Woodward\u2019s responsible for more golden parachutes than a skydiving club for failed hedge fund CEOs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going down a failed path (again),\u201d Landry declared earlier this week. \u201cThe guy that wrote (Kelly\u2019s) contract cost Texas A&M $70-something million. We have a $53 million liability. \u2026 Hell, I\u2019ll let Donald Trump select (the next football coach) before I let (Woodward) do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, that\u2019s a quote. And while it sounds like classic political theater, Landry\u2019s actually onto something.<\/p>\n

Because this isn\u2019t about micromanaging football \u2014 it\u2019s about managing money. And when the university in question is a taxpayer-funded institution of higher earning, er, learning, that makes it everyone\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Landry nailed it again when he said, \u201cI\u2019m tired of rewarding failure in this country and leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

Gov. DeSantis, are you listening? Because the Gators just paid Billy Napier $21 million to go away, and Florida State is apparently weighing whether to fire Mike Norvell<\/a> for a cool $54 million.<\/p>\n

Universities are crying poor to the state legislature one week and then torching enough cash to fund a new chemistry building the next. Meanwhile, the NCAA is begging Congress for \u201chelp\u201d to establish guidelines for paying players. Maybe someone should establish guidelines for paying fired coaches.<\/p>\n

So yeah, I\u2019m normally against politicians meddling in sports. But if they\u2019re stepping in to stop the madness \u2014 to prevent another 10-year, fully guaranteed, ego-driven buyout bomb \u2014 then I\u2019ll hand them the playbook myself.<\/p>\n

Kudos to Louisiana\u2019s governor.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s hoping Ron DeSantis is taking notes.<\/p>\n

Hey, Guv, Instead of banning books, how about you start banning buyouts! \u2026<\/p>\n

Short stuff: I\u2019m thinking about dressing up as something really terrifying for the big Halloween party Friday night. Hey, I think I\u2019ll go as the Magic\u2019s defensive rotations! \u2026 I still don\u2019t get why people are calling Game 3 of the World Series \u2014 the nearly seven-hour, 18-inning game between the Dodgers and Blue Jays \u2014 an instant classic. I call it a Senate filibuster in cleats. \u2026 I don\u2019t think University of Florida interim coach Billy Gonzalez has a snowball\u2019s chance in Key West of running the table and being hired as UF\u2019s permanent head coach, but he probably has the same outlook as another Gator interim coach a generation ago. After Galen Hall was fired in 1989 and Gary Darnell was appointed as interim coach, Florida athletic director Bill Arnsparger announced that he would conduct an extensive search. When asked if he was a candidate in Arnsparger\u2019s \u201cnational\u201d search, Darnell \u2014 a slow-talking country boy from Arkansas \u2013 replied: \u201cI\u2019m in the nation, ain\u2019t I?\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n

Former NFL star running back Adrian Peterson was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated earlier this week after police found him asleep behind the wheel of his SUV at a suburban Houston gas station. Peterson was arrested at 9 a.m. on Sunday asleep as his vehicle was running and parked near a gas pump. Peterson\u2019s nickname used to be \u201cAll Day\u201d but now, sadly, he\u2019s become All Night. \u2026 Only Colorado coach Deion Sanders could compare the impatience in college football to Brazilian butt lifts. When asked about all of the coaching firings and buyouts, Coach Prime replied: \u201cWell, there\u2019s no more patience in this world. Everyone wants the quick fix, the quick things. You got mail-order brides, right? You can get married right away. You can get a BBL (Brazilian Butt Lift). You can come in (to the clinic) flat as I don\u2019t know what and leave thick as a Snicker.\u00a0 Ain\u2019t nobody got no patience no more.\u201d Unfortunately, with the way Deion\u2019s team is playing, BBL doesn\u2019t stand for Brazilian Butt Lift in Boulder, it stands for Big Blowout Loss.<\/p>\n

Michael Jordan on NBC earlier this week when asked about the current NBA trend of healthy players not playing because of load management: \u201cYou know, I never wanted to miss a game because it was an opportunity to prove. It was something that I felt like the fans were there to watch me play. I want to impress that guy way up on top who probably worked his ass off to get a ticket or to get money to buy the ticket.\u201d Amen, M.J.!!! In today\u2019s world, Jordan\u2019s famous \u201cFlu Game\u201d would have been \u201cDNP \u2013 Sniffles.\u201d \u2026 Congratulations to Mr. Taylor Swift, er, Travis Kelce, for tying Priest Holmes for the Kansas Chiefs career touchdown record. \u2026\u00a0 Mikey likes: UCF over Baylor by 7 in Upset Special, Georgia over Florida by just 5, Miami over SMU by 9, FSU over Wake Forest by 3, Ravens over Dolphins by 10, Jaguars over Raiders by 7, Swiss Cheese over Magic\u2019s defense by 12 (uncontested layups.).<\/p>\n

Last word: \u201cHalloween was confusing to me.\u00a0 All my life my parents said, \u2018Never take candy from strangers.\u2019 And then they dressed me up and said, \u2018Go beg for it.\u2019 \u201d \u2013 Rita Rudner<\/p>\n

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my new radio show \u201cGame On\u201d every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com\/listen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Running off at the typewriter. \u2026 Normally, I don\u2019t want politicians anywhere near sports. Most of them can\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3009,11617,3603,3111,21110,4976,139,141,140,412],"class_list":["post-28457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-billy-napier","tag-brian-kelly","tag-fsu","tag-gators","tag-louisiana-governor-jeff-landry","tag-mike-norvell","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-ron-desantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}