Will Wade, Lane Kiffin give LSU most hated pair of coaches in America

In a remarkable turn of events, LSU athletics rehired Will Wade on Thursday. Wade stayed at NC State just one season. With LSU hiring administrators who knew Wade previously, Wade relished what — for him — would be a more comfortable and secure work situation. NC State to LSU is, at best, a lateral move, definitely not an upward move, but it’s what Wade wanted. LSU now has Wade, Lane Kiffin, and also Kim Mulkey as its football and basketball head coaches. No school has a more hated collection of head coaches. Let’s look strictly at men’s basketball and football, not counting the women’s game. Do any other schools come particuarly close?

Will Wade

Let’s remind everyone about Will Wade: He is reviled by his fellow coaches, not just fans, for working the gray areas of college basketball. He got pushed out of LSU precisely because of several alleged NCAA recruiting violations which, in their totality, made it virtually impossible for the school to keep him. NC State threw Wade a lifeline and a path back into high-major coaching. For Wade to immediately ditch the Wolfpack will be viewed — quite rightly — as a below-the-belt move and, beyond that, a lack of both loyalty and appreciation. At NC State and on a national level, Will Wade clearly wears a black hat. Only in Baton Rouge and McNeese is he loved. He is thoroughly hated everywhere else.

Lane Kiffin

The soap opera in which Kiffin tried to have it both ways — coaching Ole Miss in the playoff while wanting to move to a foremost rival school — did not make the coach look good. Lane Kiffin failed to appreciate that he wasn’t merely changing jobs; he was going directly to a chief rival and competitor. If Kiffin was going to an ACC or Big Ten school, none of this would have been an issue.

Lane Kiffin is now hated in a way he never was before — and not just at Ole Miss.

Alabama – Kalen DeBoer and Nate Oats

Let’s compare LSU’s coaching combo to other schools’ 1-2 pairs:

Nate Oats is widely and deeply hated for a lot of legitimate and obvious reasons. DeBoer might be hated only by Alabama fans because he’s not rising to the Nick Saban standard. Nope, this is not a more hated coaching combination than LSU’s pair of jokers, Will Wade and Lane Kiffin.

Michigan – Kyle Whittingham and Dusty May

Kyle Whittingham and Dusty May are admired, respected coaches. We bring up Michigan only because if this pair was still Jim Harbaugh and Juwan Howard, the Wolverines might have actually had a pair of coaches in LSU’s league in terms of being lightning rods and magnets for controversy.

Florida – Todd Golden and Jon Sumrall

Golden is hated for his off-court controversies. Sumrall, though, is just getting started and hasn’t really had a chance to become hated yet. Florida’s pair of coaches does not rise (or sink?) to the LSU standard.

Oregon – Dan Lanning and Dana Altman

Lanning gets under the skin of rivals and competitors but is not a bomb-thrower or a personally unpleasant figure. Dana Altman has frankly lost relevance in basketball coaching after a very strong run at Oregon in the 2010s and early 2020s. Oregon’s pair isn’t LSU material.

North Carolina

Bill Belichick is hated … but the Tar Heels don’t have a basketball coach right now. UNC isn’t yet at LSU’s level. If Carolina did hire Nate Oats, then the Tar Heels could match the Tigers.

Duke — Jon Scheyer and Manny Diaz

Jon Scheyer might not be everyone’s favorite coach, but he’s simply not the villain Coach K was. Manny Diaz just doesn’t have a high enough profile to earn LSU-level hatred.

USC — Lincoln Riley and Eric Musselman

Neither coach is widely loved, and both can be prickly at times, but to be honest, with both USC football and basketball failing, the hate generated by these coaches has decreased over time. This is not an LSU lightning rod — not now, at least.

Georgia — Kirby Smart and Mike Whie

Kirby Smart might be hated for his success, but Mike White just doesn’t move the needle.

Auburn — Steven Pearl and Alex Golesh

Two new coaches simply haven’t had the chance to generate substantial nationwide hatred, but we mention Auburn because a Bruce Pearl-Gus Malzahn combination or Bruce Pearl-Tommy Tuberville pair would definitely elicit LSU-level animosity from fans across the nation.

Tennessee — Josh Heupel and Rick Barnes

Rick Barnes is criticized for failing to make the Final Four, but he’s generally respected and not hated. Anything Josh Heupel brings to the table won’t begin to match a Lane Kiffin standard.

Miami — Jai Lucas and Mario Cristobal

Jai Lucas is a widely-admired young coach. Even if some might not like Cristobal, Lucas takes the air out of the balloon here.

Indiana — Curt Cignetti and Darian DeVries

Darian DeVries hasn’t earned or created hatred except from Indiana fans. Cignetti’s runaway success has earned hatred from other Big Ten and national fans, but DeVries ensures Indiana falls short of LSU.

Ole Miss — Pete Golding and Chris Beard

Ole Miss, interestingly enough, might have the second-most hated football-basketball coaching combination behind LSU. Pete Golding quickly drew fire from Clemson’s Dabo Swinney for the way he went about his business in the transfer portal. Chris Beard’s baggage is well-known. Like Will Wade, he made a very controversial move, going from Texas Tech to Texas. This is a combination in LSU’s league, but for most fans, it’s hard to top the lightning-rod intensity Will Wade and especially Lane Kiffin create these days.

Postscript – Kim Mulkey

There is no women’s basketball head coach who generates polarizing, stormy reactions on the level that Kim Mulkey does (and has done). She’s one of the greatest coaches ever in her sport, but she is just as surely the most controversial and loathed. LSU has somehow managed to collect three supreme lightning-rod figures as the leaders of its main sports programs. It really is uncanny.

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This article originally appeared on College Sports Wire: LSU’s Will Wade, Lane Kiffin are ultimate villains in college coaching

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