Former Louisiana Ragin’ Cajun Coach on ‘Short List’ in Las Vegas

There’s never a time in Louisiana when it’s not football season. In Baton Rouge, the LSU Fighting Tigers are set to open fall camp. The same goes for Lafayette, where Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns will strap on their pads to take on in-state opponent and HBCU icon Grambling when the seasons open for both schools on Aug. 31.

The LSU Tigers will open their 2024 football campaign a day later than the Cajuns. LSU is scheduled to take on USC on September 1. That game will be played in Las Vegas. That fact, the game being played in Vegas, ties in perfectly with the story we’re about to tell you about the upcoming college football season.

It was just a few years ago that the University of Louisiana had the longest winning streak in the country. The Cajuns under then head coach Billy Napier were a force to be reckoned with and Napier was the hot candidate for other coaching positions. The University of Florida reached out with a dump truck full of money and Coach Napier and his family moved a few hours east of Lafayette to Gainesville Florida.

Coach Napier is entering his third year at the helm of the Florida Gators program, and his past performance has landed him on a “short list” of sorts among Las Vegas oddsmakers. SportsBetting.ag has Napier along with Arkansas’ Sam Pitman as the “morning line favorites” for which NCAA coach will be the first to be fired this season.

According to the betting website, Napier’s odds are four to one. Arkansas coach Sam Pittman is next in line with odds of five to one. Then come Mario Cristobal of Miami, Dave Aranda of Baylor and Clark Lea of ​​Vanderbilt. Those coaches are six, seven and eight to one, respectively, according to the website SportsBetting.ag.

There are some pretty big names on SportsBetting.ag’s “short list,” including South Carolina’s Shane Beamer. His odds of being fired are sixteen to one. Clemson’s Dabo Swinney is also on the list. His odds are twenty-five to one. And even Coach Prime is on the “get canned” list. If you wanted to bet that Deion Sanders would be the first NCAA coach fired this season, you’d be looking at fifty to one odds.

Of course, the one coach we don’t want to see have a good season is Lane Kiffin. Why? Lane is at Ole Miss, that should be enough.