Kansas football: AD Jeff Long’s negligence in hiring Les Miles could be rearing its ugly head

With LSU set to release the findings of their investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and domestic violence this Friday, the results of that investigation could be damaging for current Kansas football head coach Les Miles and the man who hired him, Athletic Director Jeff Long.

When Kansas Athletic Director Jeff Long decided to hire Les Miles as the Kansas football head coach in 2018, the move was heralded by many. The university even collaborated with ESPN to produce a short series on ESPN+ called “Miles to Go” to commemorate the hire.

Now, thanks to the man who hired Miles, the only type of show that can be attributed to Kansas football currently is a circus.

Les Miles

If you missed the recent news, Les Miles is now in the national spotlight again thanks to a current investigation at LSU probing the university’s handling of past sexual assault and domestic violence claims from 2016 to 2018.

According to an article from The Advocate in Baton Rouge, both Miles and at least one of his former players are accused of sexual misconduct during their time at LSU. The article also mentions that Miles secretly reached a settlement approximately a decade ago with an LSU athletic department intern who accused Miles of “hitting on her.”

LSU will be releasing a report this Friday from the law firm handling the investigation, Husch Blackwell, which should shed more light on Miles’ involvement.

Last week, The USA Today reported that Miles was involved in an investigation at LSU in 2013 by the Taylor Porter law firm as a result of allegations that he sexually harassed and made sexist comments about student workers. That investigation report has also not been made public after LSU and Miles fought to prevent its disclosure. However, just yesterday, Miles and his attorney dropped their opposition against the release and are now advocating for it so Miles can properly defend his name – or in my opinion, try to avoid more bad press by not looking as if he is trying to hide his past indiscretions.

LSU still has objections to the release of the report though. A trial is scheduled for March 30 to determine whether it is appropriate for the report to be released publicly.

The USA Today article goes on to describe a special report covered by Sports Illustrated in 2013 and their investigation into the Oklahoma State football program under Les Miles.

In that investigative series, it was revealed that Miles had a first-hand role in selecting female students for their “Orange Pride” hostess program. Many of the hostesses reportedly lured recruits to OSU by having sex with them during campus visits, and according to the students and athletes who spoke to SI, some of the staff were aware it was happening.

Jeff Long

Dan Beckler, associate athletic director for public relations and strategic communications at KU made a statement last week acknowledging the report from The Advocate and said, “KU was not aware of these allegations when Coach Miles was hired in 2018.”

While that may or may not be true, do we honestly believe that Jeff Long did his due diligence in hiring him? Evidence would suggest not.

In March 2020, the Kansas City Star released a story that detailed Long’s deposition in the lawsuit that former head football coach David Beaty filed against KU for not paying the $3 million that was owed to him under his contract. Kansas Athletics and Long withheld that payment after trying to justify the firing as “for cause” due to one of Beaty’s staff members reportedly violating NCAA rules by engaging in impermissible coaching activities.

That deposition showed that Long had zero intention of hiring anyone but Miles.

Long had trouble just recalling the names of the other coaches who he interviewed for the job. Below is an excerpt from the Kansas City Star article.

"“When asked whom he had interviewed in person for the KU job, Long mentioned:"

Miles

"‘Todd Graham or Grantham’ (former Arizona State coach Todd Graham)"

"‘I’m struggling with his name. He was working for the LA Rams at the time.’ (Rams senior offensive assistant Jedd Fisch)"

"‘And the defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals, and I’m going to forget his name as well’ (Lou Anarumo)”"

The deposition also revealed that Kansas Athletics began documenting Miles’ eventual hire by recording and filming top administrators like Long for the series that would eventually become “Miles to Go,” before Beaty had even been released from his Kansas job.

The deposition showed that Long had one man in mind for the job when he took over as athletic director at Kansas. And while that is okay, he clearly did not put in full effort into vetting other possible candidates – which seems like something a good AD should do.

That one-track mind may have been the cause of him overlooking some of the skeletons that are showing up in Miles’ closet.

Miles and Long are close friends dating back to their time together in Michigan. So, either Miles was good at keeping his sexual harassment investigations from his friend, or Long knew, disregarded them, and hired him anyway.

Kansas football already has enough bad publicity from their play on the field, and now they have more bad PR because it appears their head coach wasn’t fully vetted when he was hired and/or his past transgressions were overlooked by the friend who hired him, Jeff Long.

Staff Turnover

The KU football program has seen multiple assistants and staffers leave just in the past month – a potentially ominous sign of the direction things are headed under head coach Les Miles.

Last month, offensive coordinator Brent Dearmon took the same role at Middle Tennessee State, a non-Power Five school. Outsider linebackers coach, and rising college coaching star Chidera Uzo-Diribe, took a job at SMU – also a non-Power Five school – as their defensive line coach. In addition to their coaching responsibilities, both were great recruiters for the Jayhawks.

Kansas’ Director of Scouting Drew Hixson left last month to take a job at South Carolina as the Assistant Director of Player Personnel. Then last week, the university’s Director of On-Campus Recruiting Erin Dunston and Recruiting Assistant Megan Mueller both left to take similar roles at Ohio State and USC respectively.

The recruiting staff took better jobs at better programs, that is without a doubt. And they deserve it after the job they did this past year helping Kansas obtain a top-50 national recruiting class. But the fact of the matter is, if things were going well here and things were looking up for this program, you wouldn’t have five assistants/staff members leaving for other jobs in a month.

What Happens Next?

As far as the fate of both Les Miles and Jeff Long, that is a big unknown at this point. Regardless of what comes out this Friday or at the end of this month, Kansas can’t go back in time and un-hire Miles.

But if the information is bad, will it be damaging enough for Kansas to fire him and get out of his contract for withholding that information? Would Long even make that move? Would Miles step away on his own volition and just cite his age and health as the reason? Could Long be fired for negligence?

These are all questions we do not have the answers to.

Friday will tell us more about what happened under Miles’ watch at LSU in 2016 and the role he played in those allegations. And should the judge rule against LSU in their trial on March 30, more information on the 2013 investigation could be released following that ruling.

Until then, the (circus) show that is Kansas football goes on.