LSU Football: Why the Tigers may want to speed up their coaching search

LSU football needs to be patient while hiring a new head coach, but they don’t want to be too patient.

With the Florida job now open (thanks to Dan Mullen getting fired last weekend), it means LSU has direct competition for a new head coach.

The LSU and Florida jobs are similar. Both are marquee programs in the SEC. And both are in states with fertile recruiting grounds.

While I view the LSU job as the better job (the last three Tigers head coaches have all won national championships), a potential coaching target may not be willing to wait on the program to make a hire. Instead, they could jump at the Florida job, not wanting to miss out on both jobs by waiting too long.

LSU football needs to identify a top realistic target and lock them down

It’s been widely reported that LSU athletic director Scott Woodward would like to bring Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher to Baton Rouge (Woodward hired him at Texas A&M), but that seems like a long shot at this point. Fisher seems to be happy in College Station.

There have also been rumors that Woodward wants to hire Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley. Again, that seems like a long shot.

LSU needs to be careful not to waste time on non-realistic candidates and then miss out on a solid option like Louisiana’s Billy Napier.

Napier appears to be a top option for Florida. I imagine that Napier would rather have the LSU job (he’s been in Louisiana for the last four seasons). But he can’t wait on LSU and potentially miss on both jobs.

If the Tigers think Napier is their guy, they don’t need to waste time by wooing Fisher and Riley. They need to move quickly to ink Napier to a deal before Florida does.

The same goes for other potential candidates like Baylor’s Dave Aranda or Kentucky’s Mark Stoops.

Coaching searches can go south quickly. LSU needs to make sure they don’t miss on a great candidate because they were chasing a coach who was trying to get a raise at his current job.