They say it could always be worse. Well, that applies to Tennessee football right now. Phillip Fulmer’s hire of Jeremy Pruitt turned out disastrous with the NCAA investigation and subsequent firing three years later.
However, before Pruitt was named head coach, Les Miles was on the list. There was talk that Miles could come on board, assemble an elite staff and do something like name Tee Martin the coach in waiting.
Well, that didn’t pan out for Tennessee football. The Kansas Jayhawks hired Miles a year later, and after two seasons, the university announced that they have parted ways. This comes just five days after a USA TODAY report, citing an internal LSU report, that Miles was banned from contacting female students after a 2013 probe into allegations of sexual harassment against him.
That report followed a report in The Advocate that Miles reached a secret settlement with a student who accused him of sexual harassment years ago and another report in USA TODAY that he was investigated for sexual harassment. The details of the accusations are highly serious.
Taking all this into account, imagine what it would have been like if the Vols hired Miles. Remember, in December of 2017, the athletic program was just 18 months removed from settling its own sexual assault lawsuit, paying $2.48 million out of pocket, according to Mark Schlabach of ESPN. That lawsuit cited issues dating back to Fulmer’s time as head coach on Rocky Top.
Amidst all of its issues, the last thing Tennessee football could have afforded was the fallout from hiring Miles and then this hitting the news just a few years after that story. It could have been far more disastrous from a PR standpoint than even this investigation.
Don’t forget that the possibility of UT hiring Miles was serious. A subscription article on 247Sports reported that in 2017 Fulmer made contact with Miles. Former WWE wrestler and current Knoxville mayor Glenn Jacobs (Kane), who was a private citizen at the time, tweeted out that Miles was “extremely interested” in the position.
Good friend who works with @CoachLesMiles just told me that Les is extremely interested in UT position. He'd look great in Orange. #CallLes
— Glenn Jacobs (@GlennJacobsTN) November 30, 2017
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For more context, Barrett Sallee of CBS Sports reported that his colleague, Dennis Dodd, had confirmed that there was contact with Miles, but it was in a different way. Apparently, Fulmer spoke with him before he replaced John Currie as athletic director.
That all suggests that Fulmer, who may have been planning a coup immediately after the backlash from the Greg Schiano hire, was already working towards potentially bringing Miles to UT. Of course, if that’s the case, he re-routed and hired Pruitt.
Simply put, the Vols played with fire by entertaining the idea of hiring Miles, although they didn’t know it at the time. And even if you think the NCAA investigation right now will do more long-term damage to the program, let’s not pretend that Miles for sure wouldn’t have brought something like that onto campus as well.
Remember, Sports Illustrated had that report, ironically also in 2013, about the Oklahoma State Cowboys making illegal payments to players for years. It dated back to Miles’ years as head coach of the program.
What if something like that broke now in addition to the new allegations against Miles? Tennessee football would be in even more disastrous shape. As a result, while things look bleak now, the Miles situation shows they could always be worse.