Two cents worth: Petersen

Woodward got Jimbo paid @ aTm & he's gonna get his man Petersen paid @ LSU. I don't buy the "retired" narrative folks repeat offhand. I think it's Petersen & it's been CP since SW landed in BR in 2019.

SW was never down with O, & he's had CP on deck since 2019. A forward thinker like Woody wouldn't take the AD job assuming he would have to cut O loose & hope a flavor of the year would be handy when the ax eventually fell. He has thus had a plan for succession since prior to 2019. I believe he also hamstrung O's hires & let DP run O's amateur hour publicity campaign unchecked to hasten the end. SW may not have anticipated how far O would shite the bed, but he had to have an inkling of its potential, given the history.

Someone more in the know on here can enlighten me, since I am not privy to the involvement of an AD on a coach's hires, but it seems reasonable to me that a HC must run interviews & the contracts through his boss at some point before the hire is approved? SW could easily nix coaching candidates for whatever reason he or she wishes, and/or, as O said about the Pelini hire, basically do the hiring for him or her. The narrative on O is he needs real help from coordinators to keep him afloat, & we have seen the demise of the program accordingly when those hires were subpar. I think SW helped it happen; call to an agent here, word against O there. He stymied good hires to help O fail, perhaps bumping them aside until his next guy comes in. O had his great season, but SW has more permanent ambitions for the program as a whole- ambitions that did not, nor could ever, work with CEO long-term. SW could do this because he has had a plan, I believe.
That plan is hiring his former employee, CP. I've heard all the arguments that CP is truly done. Call me jaded, but I may both admire a coach & not believe a word he says. Look no further than all of us breaking down every nuance of Riley & Fisher's statements the last few days, seeking a damning morsel of either the truth, or the lie. Words ring hollow, come hiring season. I don't buy coachspeak from any of them.

CP stepped away at the end of '19, the year SW came home. Looking at his 8-5 record, despite all efforts, CP just up and had a crisis of conscience & walked away.
Or did he?
What makes more sense: That a 2x conference winner & playoff competitor just up & quits because the recruiting & HC grind was too much, or, that he & SW realized that there was always going to be a glass ceiling, both @ UW and within the PAC12, that they could never get the program past, regardless of effort?

We are supposed to shrug & accept that CP just happened to have "retired to recharge" the very year his former boss took a job @ one of the best football schools there is? Ain't that many coincidences in life.

I believe, for now, that CP is a solid enough guy to ease himself away from Washington without hurting their feelings and set up his guy Lake to run it. I think instead he merely took some time off in 2020, (he didn't rule out a return to coaching when asked directly in an ESPN article soon after stepping aside) but he's still been busy in football circles. If you want a clean break from the stresses of the Game? Then you take your millions and get one. You don't keep a toe in it.

He's been lying low @ FoxSports. I think that's exactly why there's no chatter about possible coaches beyond everyone's, myself included, wild speculations about who shows up to take the reins in BR. There is no legit chatter about candidates because the position was filled the day SW took the job.

CP is exactly the kind of coach SW needs after O. We may think and say, why would he put himself in more of a pressure cooker @ LSU when he 'couldn't hack it' at UW? The man has been a competitor at a very high level his entire life, at schools where it's tough as hell to succeed & sustain. That competitive fire doesn't just die because he spent too many hours away at airports recruiting. He just realized his effort was all for naught. Didn't matter how many late days he had working @ UW. They just couldn't cross the finish line vs the Bamas & OSUs. It wasn't ever going to pay off in Seattle & CP had enough of it all.

However, now consider LSU with SW, Nearly every maddening gripe & logistical inconvenience he had @ UW? SW makes most of those go away @ LSU. CP will have the recruiting staff, good recruiting turf, facilities, good fans, generational $, & an annual legit shot @ a 'ship in the SEC- an SEC without Saban soon-, not an occasional glancing shot at a Natty out West. It's a long way from Seattle to Texas to visit a 4* RB who just tells you no. But, it's an hour in any direction from BR to nearly any skill guy you need, & they want to play for LSU. He'll have AT & MS running that for him.

SW is going to clean house all around. It's their new world to create. To that end, SW gets to have a sober-minded man he knows well, has won big games with, & trusts. A man with a high offensive FB and leadership acumen, & personal integrity. No buyout either, nor does he have school-aged kids. It's a slam dunk, &, perhaps, it's been in the works a while. The less I hear the name leaked- unlike all the guys whose agents are getting a lot of raises this year dropping those names around- the more I think this deal was done a long while ago.

A nice lagniappe is that CP has been doing work in advance. CP is currently getting paid by FoxSports to watch his future opposition's staffs, players, & their schemes, until he shows up 29 Nov with his new, former, boss who can give him a legit dream come true position.

So, every time a Tucker or Aranda loses & we start debating again, or after every new segment by a talking head & some writer asking whether Luke or Riley will bolt their current jobs to come to LSU, I just shrug.
Y'all may be right. Hell, I'm PROBABLY WRONG. But I simply do not see why people give SW his accolades as a big game hunter, but do not see an obvious Woodward-the-savant's-bossiest-move play ever right in front of their eyes. He doesn't have to wager on a flavor of the week & hope it works out. He can golf & keep the nervous recruits calm because he has his proven guy sitting up in a booth on TV breaking down film.

To answer the question about why Petersen hasn't been already announced, my only answer I can guess is CP's Fox contract. Contrary to what us anxious fans want, CP can work till the last game of the regular season & fly in soon after. There is no point pushing for CP and SW to burn a bridge with a multibillion dollar TV network the SEC may well be in business with a few years later just because the lack of a name is giving us all hives. The recruits have & will wait until after they've had their turkey to decide where they wish to go.

I even saw where CP started up a NIL company for UW a few weeks ago, keeping himself "relevant" when all the questions start about whether he was still in the new-normal recruiting/portal game. He is doing a dry run with the new NIL company at UW this season to work out the kinks before he & SW initiate a similar NIL program in BR. It's all scripted. And if I'm right, it'll be a thing of beauty come the last Monday of November when CP comes in to right the ship, get the great instate recruiting class in, & start unfricking LSU from this dismal bs we've endured since the Natty.

"Of course that's just my opinion...I could be wrong..." - Dennis Miller

Lil lagniappe: this was made in August 2019. See if this shows a man who was sick of it all.

LINK

And a 10year old article from his Boise days. His kids are grown btw. He doesn't have a sick one at home like folks say.

LINK