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Les Miles is out as Kansas head coach just days after being put on administrative leave amid allegations of sexual misconduct related to his tenure at LSU.
Kansas announced Miles’ departure on Monday night, describing it as a mutual agreement to go their separate ways. Miles still has three years on his original five-year contract with the school which pays him $ 2.775 million a year until December 2023 and includes several bonuses, including a retention bonus of $ 675,000 paid last November.
“I am extremely disappointed for our university, our supporters and everyone involved in our football program,” Kansas athletic director Jeff Long said in a statement. “We will immediately start looking for a new head coach with an outside firm to help us with this process. We have to win football games, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. “
Miles, 67, was 3-18 in two seasons with the Jayhawks. Offensive coordinator Mike DeBord has been appointed interim head coach.
“It’s definitely a tough day for me and my family,” Miles said in a statement. “I love this college and the young men in our football program. I really enjoyed being the head coach of KU and know it’s in a better place now than when I arrived.
Last week, LSU published a 148-page review by a law firm of the university’s handling of campus-wide sexual misconduct complaints. One section describes how Miles “attempted to sexualize student staff working in the football program, for example, by allegedly demanding he wanted busty blondes and ‘pretty girls.’
The report also revealed that then athletic director Joe Alleva recommended firing Miles in 2013 to university officials.
Kansas put Miles on leave later in the day and said they would conduct a review of the allegations against the coach they were previously unaware of.
Kansas said the terms of the deal with Miles when he left would be released in the coming days.
Miles spent over 11 seasons with LSU, leading the school to a national title in 2007. He was fired four games in the 2016 season.
Miles was investigated at LSU after two female football program students accused the coach of inappropriate behavior in 2012.
Although the 2013 Taylor Porter law firm investigation found Miles to exercise poor judgment, it did not reveal any violations of the law or that he had sex with students. Taylor Porter also concluded that he could not confirm a student’s claim that Miles kissed her while they were in the coach’s car with no one else.
In an email dated June 2013 and sent to the president of LSU, Alleva wrote that Miles was guilty of “insubordination, inappropriate behavior endangering the college, athletic (department) and football program”.
Taylor Porter’s review had been kept confidential for about eight years until a redacted version of it was released this week after a lawsuit filed by USA Today.
For Kansas, Miles’ departure is just the latest setback in what has been college football’s worst Power Five program in a decade. The Jayhawks haven’t won more than three games in a single season since 2009.
Miles had been off coaching for two years when Long hired him after the 2018 season, hoping that a notable name and a seasoned coach could help break the apathy that has surrounded the Kansas program for a decade.
Long and Miles were friends who frequented Michigan in the late 1980s.
While recruiting has improved under Miles, nothing else has changed. The Jayhawks were winless last season for the third time in program history, dropping an average of over 30 points per game.
Kansas hasn’t seen a winning season since 2008, the year before Mark Mangino was fired amid allegations of verbal and physical abuse. He was followed by Turner Gill, who won five games in two seasons, and Charlie Weis, who was 6-22 before being fired four games in the 2014 season.
David Beaty was 6-42 in four seasons at the helm of the Jayhawks and sued Kansas for refusing his buyout over NCAA offenses. Beaty struck a $ 2.55 million settlement with the school last summer.
Now, with spring football playing around the corner, Kansas is starting over again, still stuck in a deep hole.
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