BATON ROUGE - Governor John Bel Edwards said Tuesday that he understood LSU's decision to suspend Will Wade amid an ongoing recruiting scandal that has entangled the basketball coach.

Last week, a Yahoo! Sports report revealed that Wade was caught on federal wiretaps discussing a "strong-a** offer" with an agent implicated in an FBI investigation. The wiretaps were targeting Christian Dawkins, who's tied up in allegations of illegal recruiting tactics.

The recorded phone call featured a frustrated Wade referencing "the Smart thing", which potentially referred to LSU's freshman guard Javonte Smart. Wade was suspended after he reportedly refused to speak with high-ranking university officials on the matter, and Smart was not allowed to play in the Tigers' win over Vanderbilt Saturday after the comments were made public.

"It's hard for me to disagree with that decision under those circumstances. Though it is my fervent hope that Coach Wade has a way to clear this up," the governor commented Tuesday. "Like everybody else, I'm a huge LSU fan."

There is currently no federal investigation into Wade, and he remains employed as LSU's head coach.