Les Miles Is Desperate to Coach Again Bleacher Report

LAWRENCE, Kansas – Sliced avocado, mixed greens, walnuts, grapes, dried cranberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and ruby onions. These ingredients are gathered in a bowl, tossed in a rice wine vinaigrette and, on this cold night at 23rd Street Brewery, placed in front end of Kathy Miles. "I dearest the dressing," she tells restaurant possessor Matt Llewellyn. This meatless salad is a new menu item at this Lawrence restaurant, and it is selling well, Llewellyn says, mainly considering most patrons add protein, raising the toll from $x.99 to $13.99. Weeks ago, Kathy's married man, the new Kansas caput football motorbus, walked into this place for the beginning time and, after scouring the carte du jour, created his own dish. "Hither's what I want," he told Llewellyn, and with that, the Les Miles Vegan Salad was born.

Les Miles has a new diet. He has a new chore, having been fired from an SEC football game powerhouse only to land at a Big 12 basketball school. He also has a new mannerism: He no longer publicly utters the 3 messages inscribed on the national title ring he brandishes on his right mitt, instead referring to LSU as "my last stop" or "the place I was concluding". Miles, at present 65, is about 20 pounds lighter than you terminal saw him on the sideline, and for the first time in his life, he is regularly wearing his virtually hated colour, a red that is a few shades away from the ones worn past his career archrivals Alabama (as head coach at LSU) and Ohio Land (as a player and assistant at Michigan).

But the new Kansas coach is however quirky former Les Miles, the guy who during his ii years out of football starred in beer commercials and appeared in 2 characteristic films; the guy who produced hilariously perplexing press conference soundbites past butchering the English language; the guy who chewed on grass in tense sideline moments and wore his white hat and then oddly atop his head that he earned the nickname "the Mad Hatter", which dovetailed with his penchant for fourth-downwardly risks and fake field goals. He scaled a downtown Billy Rouge edifice, kissed a pig at an annual on-campus outcome and, during news conferences, did everything from answering a reporter'due south ringing cellphone to saluting Columbus Day. A retired Miles had the makings of Dos Equis'due south adjacent "most interesting man in the earth" or the replacement for Lee Corso every bit the comedic star of ESPN's College GameDay.

Miles had other plans, namely to return to the football field, where he last captained LSU for 12 years, challenge two SEC championships and a national title and exiting with the all-time winning pct of any motorbus in the program's mod era. His legacy there remains complicated. 4 games into the 2016 season, with a fan base and administration exhausted by an criminal offence stuck in the stone age, Miles was fired, too stubborn to modify philosophies. Now he'southward back, forgoing $5 million left on his LSU buyout to atomic number 82 a program that hasn't reached a bowl game since 2008. Why? "I think retirement is not something I was fired upward about," he says. "I'm having fun."

Afterwards two seasons away from the sidelines, Miles was brought in past his longtime friend, new Kansas AD Jeff Long, to turn the Jayhawks around.

David E. Klutho

The new Les Miles has a new ride, a blackness Cadillac Escalade, with a individual parking spot that hugs Memorial Stadium and allows access to a rear entrance of the football complex. It'south cold out, spitting snowfall, and within seconds, the vehicle'due south front window begins to fog. Equally he slowly rolls downwardly a paved driveway, Miles points to a nearby colina. 1 night, he watched a educatee ride a sled down the snow-covered embankment, skid across the asphalt roadway and slam into the blackness iron gate that encircles the football stadium. "He picked up his stuff," Miles laughs, "and ran."

Everything's unlike here—the weather, the culture, the people. In the middle of National Signing Day, Kansas had to close campus because of an impending ice storm. Good luck finding boiled crawfish or jambalaya here, and at that place'due south no week-long Mardi Gras break. And the people? The people like basketball. Kansas brought in but nether $4 million in football ticket revenue in 2018, while men's basketball made roughly $fifteen.ix meg, according to a recent Kansas City Star story. "Football is year-round in the SEC," says Katy Lonergan, Kansas's director of football communications and a Jayhawks alum who spent seven years in a similar role at Ole Miss. "That's basketball hither."

Athletic managing director Jeff Long wants to change that—non basketball'south success, but football game's failures. Long hired longtime football administrator Mike Vollmar to oversee football directly in a created position, and he approved the addition of 12 back up staff members and increased the overall salary puddle. A $26 million indoor football game facility will open just in time for spring drills, and the university erected new athlete dorms over the last two years. "We're not doing this at the expense of our basketball program," Long says. "It'south in addition to. We need both of them."

Dorsum in his Escalade, Miles is receiving directions—and not post-obit them very well—from backseat commuter Zac Woodfin, Kansas's director of force and workout. During one bulldoze across campus on signing mean solar day eve, Miles plows through a stop sign, cuts in front of a pedestrian and well-nigh goes out of plow at a four-way stop, triggering the other driver, who raises his easily in fury, clearly oblivious to the identity of the traffic perpetrator. "I'grand not going to hurt you! Go!" the autobus cries through the windshield. Afterward on, Kathy Miles whispers almost her husband, "He drives like his dad." In that location'southward a story hither, Les says. While growing upwardly in Cincinnati, Miles's father taught him to drive at age 13. Promise Miles sat in the passenger seat of his Chevy Impala, handed his son the keys and told him, "If you don't drive l miles an hour, you lot're wasting my time."

Miles keeps it nether 50, thankfully, and anybody makes it to the destination: the quondam Kansas indoor facility, where Miles's squad will presently begin preparation. This is a site inspection before workouts begin. As Miles walks into the back door, he bumps into a group of Kansas pole vaulters in the middle of practice. With stunned expressions, they stop everything, and Miles gathers them into a semi-circle, an entertainer most to enthrall with another act, this one a three-infinitesimal tale nearly his brusque-lived days every bit a high schoolhouse shot putter. The story culminates with a teenage Miles, full of confidence, lurching the shot put into the air for his first big throw. "Clunk," he says. The shot put traveled near v feet. The pole vaulters burst into laughter, and Miles waves bye, leaving in his wake some other satisfied audience.

During his two years away from coaching, Miles took interim lessons and auditioned for movie roles, office of what he thought might be a new career. He's appeared in four films, most recently playing a NASA official in The Challenger Disaster, a drama chronicling the Challenger space shuttle explosion. He's brought his made-for-TV productions to his new team. At one point during signing 24-hour interval, Kansas coaches would gather in the staff meeting room to recreate a commemoration video for social media purposes. Similar many signing twenty-four hours scenes, it's all an human action. Defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot, phone in manus, rushes into the room, hands a telephone to Miles and yells, "Look, Coach, what I just received!" Miles loudly announces to the room the newest signee, pumping his fist in celebration. By the finish of information technology, the entire room is roaring with laughter. "So that's what you lot ii do upwards here and then late together," one assistant jokes. "Coach is education D.J. acting!"

With the indoor facility visit complete, Miles drives back to his office. On the fashion, he passes Allen Fieldhouse, a celebrated venue with areputation for intimidating visitors, a hoops analog of LSU'due south Tiger Stadium. Along the side of Allen Fieldhouse is a practice gymnasium that encompasses a courtroom 1.5 times larger than normal. Connecting the two buildings is an elegant VIP surface area, illuminated by skylights and reserved for boosters during games. Across campus, next to Kansas's football complex, are two artificial turf practise fields. The fields don't accept lights.

Kansas drew an average of less than 20,000 fans to Memorial Stadium in David Beaty's final season.

Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Two of Miles's administration are waiting for the coach every bit he arrives at his office at 7:15 a.m. on National Signing 24-hour interval forenoon. In an unmistakably grave tone, one of the men tells Miles the bad news: "Marcus Harris's mom chosen."

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Harris is a iii-star defensive end from Alabama who had told coaches the 24-hour interval before that he planned to shun local offers from schools like Due south Alabama, Southern Miss and Tulane to sign with Kansas. Now he's having common cold feet, and then is his family unit. What happens side by side speaks to the recruiting power of Miles, a key reason Long brought him here. He's charming and comforting in front of fans and families, with a disarming, goofy personality. Tight ends coach Jeff Hecklinski witnessed it this winter during in-abode visits as Miles, surrounded by recruits' family members, put anybody at ease and then flaunted his national championship ring. "Information technology gets passed around," Hecklinski says with a laugh. The jewelry is far from the only selling signal. Miles lasted more twice every bit long as the average head coach in the SEC. "We use that," Eliot says. "He'due south got to be a corking coach to go 12 years in the SEC."

Miles hurriedly gets on the phone with Harris's mother, settles the family's nerves and gets his reward later that forenoon when Harris's paperwork arrives. Defensive line coach Kwahn Drake bellows a "Booooom!" across the hallways of the football circuitous, and Miles emerges from his part. "Marcus is in?" he asks. Marcus is in, he'due south told. The excitement over landing the 247Sports Composite's 120th-ranked strong-side defensive end, who held 1 other Power 5 offering, is one of the biggest celebrations of the 24-hour interval, an indicator of the state of affairs Miles inherits.

Kansas is considered by many to be the worst major-conference program in college football game. Miles has more than wins in sixteen seasons as a head coach (141) than Kansas does in its final 33 seasons of football (137). The Jayhawks have finished with a losing record in 10 sequent seasons, winning six conference games over that bridge, and averaged 19,424 fans at their abode games in 2018.

None of this mentions the well-nigh troublesome issue, a grim roster outlook laid out by the new staff'southward in-house evaluation: Kansas won't be able to fill its allotment of 85 scholarships until 2022 at the very primeval, thanks to attrition, the shortsighted recruiting tactics of by regimes and the NCAA'south two-year-old 25-scholarship limit for each signing class. Hecklinski spent two weeks while over Christmas break creating a comprehensive roster analysis, organized in a thick, three-ring folder that sits atop his desk. "I kept looking at it like, this can't be right," says Hecklinski. "Toughest roster situation I've seen."

Over the next three seasons, the Jayhawks volition operate in a 10-actor hole and likely far more. Those who transfer, get injured or are dismissed cannot be hands replaced. The impact on the 2019 signing class was significant. Miles and staff were limited to signing 15 players this year, every bit ten spots were filled by blueshirted prospects who joined the team last year under the previous regime. Blueshirting, the act of awarding scholarships in August to unrecruited players, is a maneuver to exceed the NCAA'southward almanac scholarship limit past borrowing spots from the following year's class, a move that often reeks of desperation. Miles downplays the roster state of affairs, while also revealing a jarring truth: He only learned the extent of the trouble after he was hired. "There'southward a clear path in getting back," Miles says. "Information technology's just going to take time."

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The new Les Miles has a new wrist accessory. An Apple Picket is fastened to a white-and-black-checkered band around his left wrist. When did you lot beginning talking to your watch? he'due south asked. "When it started talking back," he responds. Sometime dogs can learn new tricks, but two years out of college football is a long time. The transfer portal and the early signing catamenia, for example, didn't be the terminal time Miles was a coach. Many criticized Jeff Long'southward decision to bring back this onetime dog, bucking industry trends by not hiring a 30-something offensive guru. Long considered that kind of candidate, he says, but suggested that non everyone he contacted was interested in the gig. "This is non," he says, "the easiest job."

The relationship between Long, Kathy and Les dates dorsum to their days at Michigan—Les on the football staff, Long in athletic administration and Kathy an assistant women's basketball motorcoach. Four decades later, Long, 59, and Miles are back on similar paths subsequently each was fired at his last stop in the SEC West. "Nosotros both accept something we want to testify: build a program on the dorsum end of our careers," says Long, the AD at Arkansas from 2008 to '17. "Les will admit he'due south on the dorsum end of his career. The goal is to go this program to a good place for him to somewhen turn it over to someone else with it built."

Miles didn't omnibus for 26 months, and many believed he'd never land a job again, allow alone one in a Ability 5 conference. Kathy herself had doubts—"I thought that could be the case," she admits—only, then again, Les doesn't accept many hobbies to keep him busy. He does not play golf. He does not hunt or fish. His brief foray into the boob tube analyst earth didn't go smoothly. While calling a Nebraska game in 2017, he fabricated headlines by using "we" during the broadcast (his son Ben used to play for the Cornhuskers). When ESPN put him in the studio for its Coaches Moving picture Room, Miles walked off the set on a live broadcast with his microphone nonetheless on, searching for the bathroom (producers, thankfully, cut the mic before he reached the toilet).

Uprooting from Baton Rouge was hard, Kathy says, simply it was likewise a relief. The family never left the city later on Miles'southward firing. "Information technology'southward difficult to live in that location," Kathy says. "It's like the biggest party in Louisiana is going on, one you used to host, and you're not invited. By no means did people brand us experience that manner. Nosotros just felt that way."

Miles already is putting his bear on his new program. He's brought over his trademark slogan: "We exercise difficult things." Workouts are more intense, players say, and training is more grueling. Miles walked into his first team meeting, saw dozens of players with baseball caps on inside and demanded in a booming voice, "Take those hats off!" A group of players, expecting to go the goofy guy from the beer commercials, was stunned. "We were like, 'Oh southward---, he means business,'" says receiver Daylon Charlot.

Miles has zeroed in on Enemy No. 1 in his new programme. At Oklahoma Country, it was Oklahoma (he went 2–two confronting the Sooners). At LSU, information technology was Alabama (he was 5–7). In Kansas's team coming together room, a message flashes on a computer monitor, "Beat K-State." Even Kathy Miles is behind the entrada. "We take to win the state," she says. Miles's presence is making an bear on outside of the football game complex, too. There is excitement for Kansas football over again. Long says tickets sales are at 85% renewal, alee of past years' step. On his start 24-hour interval in boondocks, Miles drew hundreds to a Lawrence restaurant, with a line and then long it carried out of the building. Miles feels it. "These people are so hungry for football," he says. He ways good football game. And that won't be easy.

He must rebuild a defence that loses most of its starting forepart seven and overhaul an crime that hasn't cracked the top 100 nationally since 2012. Miles says his defense will be the strength of this team, and he's coy when discussing schematics of his offensive organisation. "Hopefully," he says, "the creative piece of football will expose itself." (Translation: He expects his Kansas offense to be more than innovative than the pro-style version he oversaw at LSU.) Miles withal has a knack for butchering syntax, and sometimes, a translation is needed. "Just twice in a month," he says, "I've gone to the office without detour." (Translation: Over the terminal month, he'southward gotten lost all merely two times on the drive to KU from his new abode 15 minutes west of campus.) Miles refers to himself not as a vegetarian but every bit a flexitarian: "A flexitarian is, in my words, the ability to swallow vegetarian unless at that place's a piddling piece of chicken that gets caught on your fork or spoon when yous are eating soup and trying to be vegetarian, merely occasionally that piece of chicken gets to your mouth and it does non benefit you politely to remove information technology, and then yous must eat it. That is the 'flex' in flexitarian." (Translation: He cheats.)

David Due east. Klutho

Around 8 a.m. on signing day, about a half-60 minutes later on dealing with Marcus Harris, Miles is needed again. Eliot briskly walks into his role with an outstretched telephone. Information technology'southward Wes Ontiveros, the father of Gavin Potter, a three-star outside linebacker from Oklahoma. Potter has been publicly committed to Kansas State for more than three months, simply he has secretly pledged to the Jayhawks and is getting a final-minute reassurance from the caput coach. "I'yard a man of my word," Miles tells Potter's dad, before the 2 launch into a conversation about wrestling, a sport in which Miles participated during high school and Potter is a two-time state champion. "You raised a fine son," Miles says. "We're merely getting started, bae, and nosotros're going to do it with his aid."

Potter is the last player to sign with the Jayhawks on Wednesday. With his father on speakerphone, his papers pop onto Eliot's prison cell phone 2 hours later on Miles's phone call, and the staff offers a thundering approving to cap off Miles's inaugural signing mean solar day. The class ranks 65th in the 247Sports Composite team rankings, up from 120th after the early signing period and in front of beau Big 12 member Texas Tech but right around the Jayhawks' average almanac finish. There is a celebration in the hallways of the football complex that fits given the circumstances: a program with simply one commitment 10 weeks ago with a staff, for the most office, living out of a downtown Lawrence hotel equally they try to recruit their way effectually a tricky roster situation. At an 11 a.m. staff meeting, Miles addresses his administration. "You busted your tail," he says. "Fought similar hell." Eliot responds, "You did this likewise," and assistants give a circular of applause to the man staking his name to a rebuild that starts with this group of signees.

Outsiders might see a different picture: The class has i 4-star, 5 junior college players and no offensive linemen. Comparing the class to the last ane Miles signed is unfair—LSU's 2016 grade was ranked No. two in the nation—only information technology is as well telling. He's gone from the elevation of major college football to most the bottom, and he'southward adjusting appropriately. On Wednesday, Miles used a practice he rarely needed at LSU, dishing out a scattering of grayshirts to players who will sit out the autumn of their freshman year before beingness put on scholarship the following spring, taking upward a spot on the 2020 form. KU signed a total of 19 players, with simply almost 15 eligible spots. "We did everything we could with what we had," Miles says.

This roster issue dates back years, according to Kansas safeties Clint Bowen, a Jayhawk alum who, counting his playing days, has been part of the program for 25 of the last 28 years. "Every coach who followed [Mark] Mangino started in a hole," he says. The 29 players who left the program after Charlie Weis's first flavor in 2012 really began the steep turn down, and Weis's successor David Beaty exacerbated it, signing more than than 25 junior college guys in the 2017 and 2018 classes in addition to the blueshirting tactics. "I do think we suffered from trying to do some quick fixes," Long says, "because they were so desperate for on-field success."

Miles says he's not here for a quick fix. Long and he both admit that it will take time, attempt and free energy. This is a years-long process, not a months-long one. At 65, is Miles set for such a long, winding challenge? Miles is asked this question a mean solar day before signing solar day while seated backside his part desk-bound eating his daily dejeuner: a meatless Chipotle salad bowl layered with corn, pinto beans and the soy bean production sofritas, with guacamole and hot salsa on the side. "I'thousand salubrious," he says, with a glance down at his bowl and a scoop of guacamole on his spoon. "I can exercise the things I've always needed to do—that's make a team better. I remember we can win here and win on a regular basis."

After Miles's noon printing conference on National Signing Twenty-four hour period, the coach is back in his office interviewing for a graphic blueprint position on his staff, and minutes afterwards, he leads an unplanned meeting for more than an 60 minutes to hash out the next wave: the 2020 signing class. Steven Biter, the special banana to the head coach, bustles from the staff coming together to his function and back. Biter, xxx, has spent the last twelvemonth with Miles, helping him strategize for a potential render to coaching. While the outgoing staff however occupied the football circuitous, Biter and Miles huddled in a conference room in Kansas' athletic administration edifice, assembling a staff and mapping out an accelerated recruiting plan.

For months final bound, fall and summer, Biter only knew the player and Goggle box analyst Les Miles. Now, finally, he knows Les Miles, the bus. "He'due south much more than comfortable in this role," Biter says. "It's like riding a bike for that guy. It's like a duck to h2o. This is why this guy was put on planet Earth."

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Source: https://www.si.com/college/2019/02/12/les-miles-kansas-jayhawks-recruiting-lsu-career

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