Louisiana regulator blasts LSU Coach Brian Kelly's $100M deal: 'Somebody needs to yell stop'

Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell blasted new LSU football Coach Brian Kelly's 10-year, $100 million deal Thursday, saying it shows misplaced priorities for the state.

Campbell noted that Kelly's compensation will make him one of the five highest paid college football coaches while LSU's ranking in the U.S. News and World Report's list of best universities fell to No. 172, the state's per capita income is $27,923 and the university's library is crumbling.

"This has gotten completely out of hand," Campbell, D-Elm Grove, said in an interview with USA Today Network. "Somebody has to yell stop."

Though private funding finances virtually all of Kelly's compensation package, Campbell said the message is clear.

"Our priority is football; it isn't properly funding our public universities," he said.

Campbell said he is an LSU football fan and four-decade season-ticket holder, but that Kelly's salary that begins at more than $9 million per year before incentives is obscene.

"What message are we sending the nation when Louisiana raises millions of dollars for a football coach while LSU’s academic rankings continue to drop, our library walls mold and many of our best teachers leave the classroom?" Campbell said in a press release. "When our interstate highways fill with college graduates headed to jobs in Texas every spring? When we score lower in academics than every SEC school except Mississippi State?"

"As a lifetime Louisianan and LSU supporter, I will root for him and the Tigers next fall," he said. "But I will also look forward to the day when Louisiana citizens support academic achievement as much as they support football."

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Louisiana regulator blasts LSU Coach Brian Kelly's $100M deal: 'Somebody needs to yell stop'