Will Wade isn't dodging N.C. State talk — He's owning it

In a bygone era, Will Wade got fired for saying something similar to what he said Thursday. Now? The one-time pariah is showing other coaches how to handle the inevitable byproduct of success in a new era of college sports.

Speaking with The Field of 68 following the his McNeese team’s 69-67 upset of No. 5 seed Clemson in Providence, R.I., Wade declined to engage in the biggest dance of every NCAA Tournament — the two-step coaches usually break out when asked about other jobs while their team is still in the tournament. Unlike most coaches who know they’re leaving their current school when the run ends, Wade didn’t run from reports that he’s going to be N.C. State’s next coach. He wasn’t worried about his players finding out on social media, because he’d already talked to them about it. (In some cases, it seems, during their recruitment to McNeese.)

“Shoot, half the kids I recruit, the goal is to go Power 5 after this year,” Wade told the show. “Some of you guys can go with me. We all know what’s up. For our guys, this was great for them. They’ve got a lot of schools in their DMs looking to pick them up, pay them.”

McNeese coach Will Wade talked about the NC State job with @TheFieldOf68 after his team’s upset win over Clemson today.

“Half the kids I recruited, I told them, ‘Hey, the goal is to go Power 5 after this year and some of you guys can go with me. We all know what’s up.” pic.twitter.com/njDdMJRxWe

— Noah Fleischman (@fleischman_noah) March 20, 2025

Feel free to insert your own strong-ass offer joke here. You know you’re thinking it right now. Wade seems like the kind of guy who would laugh right along with you.

For those who don’t remember, Wade was the last coach to win consistently at LSU. He also got caught on an FBI wiretap in 2017 talking about a “strong-ass offer” made to the handler for then-recruit Javonte Smart, who wound up signing with Wade’s LSU team.

The FBI’s “Ballers” investigation was a waste of tax dollars that found what everyone already knew: Shoe company employees paid players and their families under the table so the players would go to schools that had contracts with the employee’s particular shoe company. The case the government eventually made was that an Adidas executive named Jim Gatto and two wanna-be agent/financial planners defrauded universities by paying players to go to those schools. Yes, it was indeed as stupid as that last sentence sounds. The justice department got people sentenced to federal prison by claiming an Adidas executive defrauded Kansas (among other schools) by paying players so they would go to Kansas. The University of Kansas was apparently so aggrieved by this fraud that in 2019 it extended its Adidas deal to 2031.

LSU officials stood by Wade at first. He was winning, after all. But in April 2019, on the same day LSU’s board of supervisors approved new athletic director Scott Woodward’s new contract, it also approved an amended deal for Wade that would allow the school to fire him for free if he was found to have committed violations of NCAA recruiting rules. It took almost three years, but LSU indeed fired Wade for free in 2022 after receiving a notice of allegations from the NCAA.

By then financial offers to players — strong-ass or otherwise — had become perfectly acceptable conversations. States enacted laws in 2021 that forced schools and the NCAA to allow players to get paid. Like the guy who ran a great speakeasy getting hired following the passage of the 21st Amendment, Wade was perfect for the new era. He didn’t stay unemployed long. McNeese, a Louisiana state school near the Texas border in Lake Charles, snapped him up in 2023 and was willing to accept any penalties the NCAA handed Wade. The most concrete of those penalties was a 10-game suspension handed down in June 2023. Wade served the suspension and then led the Cowboys — who had lost 23 games the previous season — to a Southland Conference title. He led McNeese to another conference title this season, and the Cowboys drew Clemson in the first round. 

But before the game, another ACC school appeared. The sport’s landscape has changed again. Schools want to hire coaches as soon as possible because the transfer portal opens March 24. That’s why Jai Lucas is now Miami’s head coach instead of finishing this season as a Duke assistant. Even when the portal isn’t open, administrators want to make sure they have a coach maneuvering to assemble the best roster as it does open.

N.C. State fired Kevin Keatts on March 9. The Wolfpack don’t want to wait. There’s the portal. Also, other jobs were opening. Indiana needed a coach and then hired one. Villanova now needs a coach. So does Iowa. Texas could need one soon. 

In most college basketball or football searches, the school would identify its top target. It might even talk to the coach while that coach still has games to play at the current school, but most of the legwork would be done by the coach’s agent. The details of the deal would be hammered out. The memorandum of understanding would be redlined and approved. Then, moments after the coach finished the last game, he’d just leave. Players wouldn’t get closure. Sometimes assistant coaches would be left behind, gobsmacked that they had no idea they were about to be out of a job.

It’s usually more cloak-and-dagger in football because the organizations are larger. When Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma to take the USC football job, only a few people in the building knew he was leaving because they were the only ones leaving with him. But basketball coaches usually will stay quiet through the NCAA Tournament and then hop to another job a few days later. That’s what Darian DeVries did last year when he left Drake for West Virginia. He won’t celebrate his one-year anniversary in Morgantown, though. He’s already taken the Indiana job.

Wade probably would have avoided public comments about the N.C. State situation had the news not leaked. Judging by the way his players have spoken about him these past few days, he was always going to address the situation with them. And when the story went public, he didn’t pretend it wasn’t happening. He acknowledged it and got his team ready to play.

Was Wade’s job situation a distraction? Charles Barkley thought it would be on the March Madness pregame show before making a prediction that went spectacularly awry.

Barkley: “They could have waited a day.”

Kenny Smith: “They might win today.”

Barkley: “They’re not going to beat Clemson. Stop it.”

They beat Clemson. They built a massive lead thanks in part to a zone defense that McNeese had been holding back and Clemson wasn’t ready for. The Cowboys then hung on for dear life to win. They’ll face Purdue on Saturday.

Wade will be McNeese’s coach until at least then. He’d like to stretch his tenure at least another week. Hopefully two. Then he’s going to leave. Some of his players might likely will join him.

They had the same goal. Get to the power conferences, or get back there.

“Coaches, you get an opportunity when you win to move,” Wade told The Field of 68. “Players, you get an opportunity when you play well. They get a chance to move. It’s the free markets at work. That’s America.”

May the strongest-ass offers win.