Kansas has fired athletic director Jeff Long less than two days after mutually parting with Les Miles amid sexual allegations dating to the football coach’s time at LSU.
Kurt Watson will serve as the interim athletic director as the school begins searching for both a new AD and a new football coach.
Long’s dismissal came one day after he had vowed to lead the search for Miles’s successor, a move that drew a significant amount of backlash from the Kansas alumni base. It was Long who had hired Miles despite question marks in the coach’s background that ultimately led to his firing Monday night.
The move also comes as the Jayhawks’ storied men’s basketball program, which is awaiting the decision of an independent arbitrator on severe NCAA sanctions, prepares to open the Big 12 Tournament on Thursday.
Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod in a released statement said “Once a new athletics director is in place, that individual will determine the next steps related to our football coach position. To assist the new athletics director make that determination once he or she arrives, I am assembling a committee of advisors who will be ready to help when called upon.”
