Will Wade and LSU Seem Destined for a Reunion Four Years After Messy Firing

Sometimes, a man just has a love for a place. A strong-ass love.

It appears that Will Wade has that depth of affection for LSU. It’s an unquenchable, enduring ardor. Being fired by the school four years ago couldn’t diminish his strong-ass love. And in return, refusing to meet with his superiors after being caught on an FBI wiretap discussing an “offer” to a recruit could not kill LSU’s crush on Wade.

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What a romance.

Since his firing, the dream couple spent time apart—Wade was out of college basketball for a year as his radioactivity cooled, then took an image-rehab stint at mid-major McNeese State for two seasons, then came back into the big time at NC State, while LSU moved on to Matt McMahon. Through it all, those silly kids kept the flame lit. That’s commitment.

Now, it seems, a heartwarming reunion could be at hand. Picture Wade and Louisiana Gov. Hee-Haw, Jeff Landry, running toward each other with outstretched arms in a meadow. All the feels.

Landry has been known to swoon over Wade. And it just so happens that LSU—the school where Landry is the de facto meddler in chief—hired Wade’s former president at McNeese, Wade Rousse, for the same position in Baton Rouge. Now comes reports that LSU is working on hiring the McNeese athletic director as well, Heath Schroyer. This reunion of the Lake Charles posse could only deepen Wade’s desire to reunite.

While that maneuvering is ongoing, Wade reportedly is in discussions with NC State about his future there. Would the Wolfpack stand in the way of his true love?

Surely, it comes as a shock that someone as deeply principled as Wade might use the school like a rented mule for a year—who could have foreseen it? Wade declared NC State “a destination job” 367 days ago when he was hired, but destination and destiny are two different things. Destiny is calling Baton Rouge.

It all sounded so good when he was introduced: “It’s going to be a reckoning for the ACC. It’s going to be a reckoning for college basketball. It’s coming, and it’s coming soon. I want to be very clear. This is not a rebuild.”

To be sure, NC State spent plenty of NIL and rev-share money to back up those words. Wade’s first (and possibly last) Wolfpack team went 20–14, lost eight of its final 10 games, barely earned an NCAA men’s tournament bid and crashed out in the First Four. In terms of a reckoning for the ACC, I reckon Louisville enjoyed scoring 118 on Wade and beating him by 41 points; I reckon both Duke and Virginia enjoyed beating him by 29; and I reckon Stanford enjoyed beating him in Raleigh.

Presumably, the discussion on Wade’s end with athletic director Boo Corrigan goes like this: “I’ll be honest with you, I’m [expletive] tired of dealing with the thing. Like I’m just [expletive] sick of dealing with the [expletive]. Like, this should not be that [expletive] complicated.”

What Wade said on the famous wiretap could be applied here. It should not be that (expletive) complicated to let a man follow his heart out of a contract, right?

Except there is a $5 million buyout. And that buyout drops to $3 million after April 1. If the Wolfpack wants to sit around being used by Wade as he “deliberates” for a week in order to help save LSU millions, that’s their choice. Or they could try to negotiate a price between those figures—say, $4 million—and kick him out of his office tomorrow.

Of course, it’s worth wondering what’s happening with The Other Guy, McMahon. His tenure as Wade’s successor hasn’t gone particularly well—he’s 60–70 in that time, 38 games below .500 in the SEC—but as of this moment he is the LSU head coach. At any point does McMahon stick up a hand and say, “Excuse me? I’m still over here while you two are carrying on together in public.”

LSU head coach Matt McMahon reacts during a game. — LSU head coach Matt McMahon could be collateral damage in the Will Wade courtship. | Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

Alas. Sometimes, a torrid love affair leaves collateral damage.

Clearly, LSU’s crush on Wade goes beyond just winning. He’s done a fair amount of that, with eight NCAA bids in the last nine years at four different schools. But starting with Gov. Hee-Haw, there clearly is an affinity at the state’s flagship school for riding the range in outlaw black.

Perhaps that counterprogramming is because high achievement in higher education is out of reach. When LSU is 169th nationally in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, its sports might as well shoot for No. 1 in attention.

Last fall, LSU spent an actual fortune to buy out football coach Brian Kelly: $54 million. Then it spent a fortune to hire renowned rascal Lane Kiffin away from Mississippi, and doing so while the Rebels were advancing to the College Football Playoff. That led to a spectacularly messy and bitter departure by Kiffin while his team went to the CFP without him.

During that tumult, LSU also squeezed out athletic director Scott Woodward, who was on Gov. Hee-Haw’s bad side, replacing him with longtime company man Verge Ausberry. Schroyer would, in theory, be overseeing basketball and Wade while Ausberry herds cats as the manager of Kiffin and his staff.

Bringing back Wade is something, all by itself. Pairing him with Kiffin and flamboyant fashionista and verbal arsonist Kim Mulkey, the women’s basketball coach, would create a menagerie of antiheroes. Does that lineup make you cringe? Possibly. Make you laugh derisively? Maybe. Make you look? Definitely.

In case you were wondering, the collective nouns for a group of weasels are: pack, gang, sneak, confusion and boogle. If love conquers all and Will Wade goes back to LSU, there will be quite the boogle in Baton Rouge.

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