Last night news broke that Verge Ausberry would be named the next athletics director at LSU. Ross Dellenger had it. Pete Thamel had it. The Advocate had it. Basically anyone who breaks news in college
sports all reported the same thing: Verge Ausberry is the new athletic director for Louisiana State University.
Not even 12 hours later, newly elected LSU president Wade Rousse confused everyone and more or less backtracked the news in an interview with Piper Hutchinson of The Louisiana Illuminator.
“I’ll remove the interim [title] and then we’ll assess the situation,” Rousse said. “I can’t make a very good decision after being on that on the job for eight hours…”
But wait! It gets even more confusing because Rousse also said this:
“I don’t know what permanent means versus removing the interim.”
Rousse did a separate interview with WWL and (kind of) clarified his statement. Rousse said that Ausberry “has my full authority to go find us a coach” and called Ausberry the acting AD…but he’s not officially the university’s new athletics director?
The great irony in all of this is Rousse told The Illuminator that “instability is not healthy” when trying to hire a football coach (or anyone for that matter) and he’s absolutely correct, instability ISN’T healthy…so why is he backtracking and making the situation more unstable?
