Kansas athletic director Jeff Long said he and the university were unaware of any wrongdoing in Les Miles’ past before hiring him as the football team’s head coach in 2018.
Miles was fired on Saturday amid allegations of student misconduct during his tenure as head coach at LSU. Kansas announced Monday that it has stepped down as head coach.
“When Les Miles was identified as the lead candidate to be head coach in 2018, the University of Kansas and Kansas Athletics do, with all the hiring, we did several background checks on Coach Miles,” Long told a news conference. virtual press on Tuesday afternoon.
“I also asked Coach Miles directly during the interview process if there was anything in his past that might embarrass the university or himself or our program and he said no. We did our due diligence by talking to people. from the LSU athletics department to see if there was anything we should be aware of about Coach Miles’ tenure at LSU, and we haven’t received any guidance on any issues. “
Long said that in early February, Miles’ camp made Kansas aware of a legal dispute in Louisiana, but could not share information about it. Long said he asked Miles if there was anything he should be worried about in the reports, and Miles told him no.
“At the time, I requested copies of all reports related to Les Miles while at LSU,” Long said. “Miles’ lawyers have given us a variety of reasons why they would not have provided it to us. On February 24, I learned some details about the allegations when the Lawyer published his original article followed by the USA Today article later in the day, that there was a secret settlement and a sexual harassment investigation in 2013. “
Miles was three years old and about $ 8 million on a five-year contract he signed with Kansas in November 2018. The two sides settled for $ 1.99 million, according to the school.
On March 4, a report published on behalf of LSU showed that a 2013 internal school investigation accused Miles of inappropriate behavior toward female students, including allegations that he contacted some via Facebook and text messages, he met. off campus and kissed at least them. Long said they then received the full report because it was available to the public.
Miles denied kissing the student, saying he had done nothing wrong and guiding the girls to college.
Long was asked why Miles was not fired for reasons if Miles lied to him.
“This is really a legal question about how he could or could not answer at that time. But that was his answer,” Long said.
When pressed again, Long said, “It is debatable whether this is a lie and I will leave it to our legal people to do so. We thought it was important to move our program forward, that we had to agree to break up with each other and pay Les until the rest of the 21st is essentially what happened. “
When asked if he was worried about the status of his own job, Long said he was focused on student-athletes in Kansas.
While Long said there are currently no leading candidates to replace Miles, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg says Willie Fritz of Tulane, Lance Leipold of Buffalo, Jay Norvell of Nevada and Skip Holtz of Louisiana Tech could be potential candidates for this job, who will probably focus their search. on FBS head coaches.
Mike DeBord, who was hired as Kansas’ offensive coordinator on Feb. 2, will serve as the program’s interim head coach until an interim head coach is established.