Kansas athletic director Jeff Long said he and the university were unaware of any wrongdoing in Les Miles’ past before he hired him as head coach of the football team in 2018.
Miles was placed on leave Friday following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward female students during his tenure as head coach at LSU. Kansas announced Monday that he was stepping down as head coach.
When Les Miles was identified as the leading candidate for the 2018 head coaching job, the University of Kansas and Kansas Athletics conducted multiple background checks on coach Miles, Long said Tuesday in a virtual press conference.
I also asked Coach Miles directly during the interview if there was anything in his past that would have embarrassed the university, himself or our program, and he said no. We also spoke with the athletic staff at LSU to see if there was anything to know about coach Miles’ work at LSU, and we received no indication that there were any problems.
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Long said Miles’ camp notified Kansas of the Louisiana lawsuit in early February, but he could not provide any information about it. Mr. Long said he asked Miles if there was anything they should be concerned about based on the records and Miles said not.
At this time, we have requested copies of all reports that pertained to Le Miles when he worked at LSU, Long said. Miles’ attorney explained the many reasons why they were not provided to us. The 24th. We learned some details of the allegations in February when the lawyer published his original article, and on the same day an article in USA Today revealed that there had been an undisclosed settlement and sexual harassment investigation in 2013.
Miles had three years and about $8 million left on the five-year contract he signed with Kansas in November 2018. The two parties agreed to a settlement of $1.99 million, according to the school.
Thursday, a report released on behalf of LSU revealed that Miles accused inappropriate behavior toward female students during an internal investigation at the school in 2013, including contacting some of them via Facebook and text messages, meeting off-campus in private and kissing at least one of them. Ms. Long stated that at the time they received the full report because it was public.
Miles denied kissing the student, saying he had done nothing wrong and that he mentors young women at the university.
Long was asked why Miles was not fired because Miles lied to him.
It’s really a legal question of how he may or may not have reacted at the time. But that was his answer, Long said.
Pressed again, Mr Long said the question of whether it was a lie was moot, and I will leave it to our legal experts to answer it. We felt it was important to move our agenda forward, that we should agree on a mutual separation and payment of Les before the end of 21, that’s about it.
Asked if he was concerned about the state of his own work, Long said he was focused on Kansas student-athletes.
While Long said there are currently no top candidates to replace Miles, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg said Tulane’s Willie Fritz, Buffalo’s Lance Leipold, Nevada’s Jay Norvell and Louisiana Tech’s Skip Holtz could be potential candidates for the job search, which would likely focus on FBS head coaches.
Mike DeBord, who died at 2. He was hired as Kansas’ offensive coordinator in February and will be the program’s head coach until an interim head coach is named.
