Former LSU football coach Brian Kelly was sent an official termination letter by the school the day before Thanksgiving.
The letter states Kelly was fired “without cause” and that Kelly will be paid the full $54 million buyout over a six-year period, Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported.
Kelly will need to meet the obligation to find another job in order to ensure he receives the full buyout amount.
“The letter details Kelly’s responsibility to mitigate the buyout,” Dellenger reported. “That includes making ‘good-faith, reasonable and sustained efforts to obtain’ employment. LSU expects Kelly to ‘maintain reasonable documentation of’ his job search, including interviews and offers, per the letter.”
The official termination letter comes after a report came out earlier this week that Kelly was claiming that the LSU situation had been making it “impossible” for him to find a new coaching job.
The university was claiming Kelly had not been “formally terminated,” and Kelly’s legal representative claimed that it was impacting job prospects.
“As you know, there is absolutely no basis to LSU’s contrived positions that Coach Kelly was not terminated or that cause existed for such termination,” the letter stated, per ESPN. “LSU’s conduct, including its failure to confirm that Coach Kelly was terminated without cause and its unsupported allegations of misconduct on the part of Coach Kelly, has made it nearly impossible for Coach Kelly to secure other football-related employment.
“LSU’s conduct continues to harm Coach Kelly, particularly during this critical hiring period.”
Kelly was relieved of his coaching duties on Oct. 26 after the Tigers lost to Texas A&M and the now-former LSU athletic director Scott Woodward indicated that the decision was performance-related.
The $54 million buyout is one of the priciest in college football history and drew scorn from Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry over its costliness.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
