LSU’s Disastrous Loss To Ole Miss Worse Than A Blowout, Especially For Matt McMahon’s Job Status

ESPN2. The Tigers’ lone SEC win is against the then-SEC-winless Razorbacks, 78-74, on Jan. 14. But the Hogs and first-year coach John Calipari have won two of their last three – 89-79 at No. 12 Kentucky on Feb. 1 and 78-70 at Texas last week before a very good 85-81 loss to No. 3 Alabama on Saturday.

Then it’s two winnable – or choke-able games – at Oklahoma (16-7, 3-7 SEC) and South Carolina (10-13, 0-10 SEC) at home before the Tigers play five straight against ranked SEC teams to finish the regular season. Those are No. 3 Florida (20-3, 7-3), No. 5 Tennessee (20-4, 7-4), at No. 22 Mississippi State (17-6, 5-5), at No. 15 Kentucky (16-7, 5-5) and No. 18 Texas A&M (18-5, 7-3).

So, McMahon is looking at a 3-15 season – 4-14 at best.

He is in his third season with two bad ones around a decent one. Do not assume he will be fired, though. McMahon is on a seven-year contract at $2.8 million a year through 2029. Considering Woodward likes to delve into voodoo economics and the women’s basketball program lost $8.5 million last year, he may not be able to withstand paying McMahon $11 million not to coach the next four years.

If Woodward does fire McMahon after this season and chalks it up as a bridge hire before a major hire that could attract more NIL money, Woodward would have to enter the $4- to $5-million range for a new coach. Now, the price to swap out McMahon is getting close to $20 million when you count the assistants.

And would Woodward want to do that if he is possibly looking for a new football coach in a couple years should Brian Kelly stumble toward mediocrity again as he did last season? And all the while with women’s basketball a spending pit regardless of how much it wins.

If Woodward keeps McMahon, it will be very difficult to raise NIL money for a coach coming off a 3-15 or 4-14 season. NIL money tends to rise more significantly after a fresh new hire.

At least, LSU men’s basketball is still making money. It had a $1 million surplus last year, thanks to the profitable NCAA Tournament. Woodward’s best bet may be to swallow his hiring ego for a year or two and hope McMahon can get some better players via NIL through the new revenue sharing.

In the meantime, Woodward needs to update his men’s basketball coach wish list while gathering another war chest of other people’s money.