The announcement comes days after KU athletics director Jeff Long said Miles would be placed on administrative leave while the school was conducting a review to determine next steps.
It followed the release of two reports investigating allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior by Miles during his time at Louisiana State University. Miles denied the charges.
Miles was the head coach of LSU from 2005 to 16, winning the national championship in the 2007 season. He was hired by the Jayhawks to lead their football team on November 18, 2018.
“I am extremely disappointed by our university, fans and everyone involved with our football program,” Long said in a statement on Monday. “There are a lot of young talents on this football team and I have no doubt that we will be identifying the right person to lead this program. We will immediately start looking for a new head coach with an outside company to help us with this process. We need to win football games and that is exactly what we are going to do ”.
A statement by Miles was also provided by the athletics department.
“This is certainly a difficult day for me and my family,” said Miles. “I love this university and the young people on our football program. I really enjoyed being the head coach of KU and I know that you are in a better place now than when I arrived. For our student-athletes, I want you to remember that you came to play for KU and graduate here. So I beg you to continue and develop what we started and do all the things we talked about doing together. There is a bright future for all of you and for KU Football. ”
2 reports investigated Miles at LSU
Taylor Porter’s investigation, which was at LSU’s request, concluded that Miles “engaged in behavior that showed poor judgment”, but did not substantiate any legal breach.
On Friday, Miles’s lawyer, Peter Ginsberg, said in a statement that “the Taylor Porter Report must end unsubstantiated and inaccurate media reports that Coach Les Miles was involved in an appropriate touch on a student volunteer from Athletics Department for eight years. ”
“Coach Miles then denies, as he now denies, that such conduct has taken place,” said Ginsberg, adding: “The report also revealed that a second woman made a similar claim. The report concluded that the accuser was not entirely reliable and his claim totally unfounded. “
The lawyer also criticized Husch Blackwell’s investigation, Ginsberg said the investigators did not interview Miles or other key witnesses. Instead, he claimed that the law firm guessed Taylor Porter’s conclusions without providing any basis for doing so.
Husch Blackwell was hired by LSU after a report in USA Today in November 2020 entitled “LSU handled poorly complaints of sexual misconduct against students, including top athletes.”
His May 2019 statement “reported an allegedly significant misconduct committed by the most powerful person in the Athletics Department (and perhaps at the University), LSU Football Coach Les Miles, from approximately 2009 until Miles left in 2016.”
Among the claims made by Lewis, the report says, was that after losing the 2012 national championship game, Miles “tried to sexualize the team of student workers on the football program, for example, allegedly demanding that he want ‘blondes with the girls’. big breasts’ and ‘pretty girls’. “
Miles denied all allegations of misconduct, the report said. CNN asked Kansas for a comment from Miles on the report.
According to the Husch Blackwell report, Joe Alleva, then director of athletics at LSU, stated that he “recommended the University’s president, the University’s Board of Supervisors and the University’s lawyers, to shut down Les Miles for cause.”
“Once again, I want us to think about which scenario is worse for LSU,” Alleva said in an email of June 21, 2013 to LSU’s new president, F. King Alexander, who is included in the report. “Explaining why we let him go or explaining why we let him stay.”
KU said on Monday that the search for a new coach begins immediately and that Mike DeBord will continue to serve as an interim coach until an interim coach is determined.
CNN’s Wayne Sterling contributed to this report.