Kansas Football Listed Twice in Worst Head Coaching Hires Since 2000

The Kansas Jayhawks had some pretty rough football seasons in the 2010s. 

Prior to the past few years, KU was the laughing stock of college football. It was a period mired with blowout losses and terrible coaching.

That's why it shouldn't come as a surprise to Jayhawk fans that a pair of former coaches landed on CBS Sports' list of the top 25 worst coaching hires this century — Charlie Weis at No. 5 and Les Miles at No. 8.

"Another failed Notre Dame coach who got a bounce-back opportunity that ended horribly," writer John Talty stated. "It's not simply the ghastly 6-22 (1-18 in Big 12) record in two-and-a-half seasons that lands Weis on this list. He also deserves extra blame for a JUCO-heavy recruiting approach that left Kansas hamstrung for years afterward."

"Weis went with the quick-fix approach, it blew up in his face and it took one of the game's best coaches (Lance Leipold) to finally deliver Kansas' first winning season more than a decade after Weis' arrival."

Weis’ short tenure left the program in a deeper hole than he found it, setting the stage for years of futility that followed.

Talty also didn’t hold back on Miles and his time in Lawrence.

"Miles had been out of college football for more than two years and was even pursuing an acting career when Kansas made the bold swing to hire him as David Beaty's replacement," he wrote. "It didn't work, to put it mildly."

"Like [Kevin] Sumlin and others, Miles is a good example of the well-known retread rarely working, especially dropping down to a school with less resources than the previous one," Talty concluded.

Hired in 2018, the former national champion had hopes of revitalizing the struggling program. 

But despite the initial excitement, Miles posted a 3–18 record over two seasons, and his tenure ended abruptly in 2021 following the release of sexual misconduct allegations from his time at LSU.

While Kansas’ past head coaching hires haven’t quite worked out, AD Travis Goff eventually hit the jackpot with Lance Leipold in 2021.