Though the NCAA described the presence of Kansas football coach Les Miles when alleged impermissible coaching infractions took place as “troublesome,” it stood firm on the assertion that Miles’ program only should receive a single, lowest-severity Level III charge for those transgressions.
The NCAA, in its response to KU Athletics on Thursday, also reaffirmed its stance that a pair of alleged Level II violations under former coach David Beaty were properly classified while saying there were only scant similarities in the actions that occurred under Beaty and Miles.
The portion discussing KU football’s three alleged football violations was relatively brief; just 19 of 92 pages went over the NCAA’s stance as it related to the football team’s transgressions.
As part of that section, though, the NCAA spelled out a timeline of events that occurred with KU football immediately following The Kansas City Star’s September report that revealed impermissible coaching violations appeared to be taking place by special teams analyst Tony Coaxum under Miles’ supervision.
Immediately after the story’s publication, the NCAA said it worked “collaboratively” with KU to investigate the situation. The NCAA stated that initially, KU and the Big 12 Conference reviewed the video clips attached to the article and determined no violations had taken place in those instances.
The NCAA said its enforcement staff requested KU conduct a review of all practice videos from the spring and fall of 2019 under Miles. In researching 80 hours of video, KU said in addition to Coaxum, it discovered examples of another KU special teams analyst — Devin Ducote — providing on-field coaching in violation of NCAA rules. KU determined there were five combined instances of violations with Coaxum and Ducote and suspended both for two weeks.
On Oct. 10, KU sent the NCAA enforcement staff a 43-minute video file of KU’s special teams practices, which included 29 occurrences KU flagged as “questionable practice activities with student-athletes.” KU said it did not believe violations had occurred in every situation there, except for the five instances it had previously marked.
The NCAA enforcement staff, upon review, found that 18 of the 29 clips violated NCAA rules, with Coaxum or Ducote giving technical or tactical instruction with “each lasting no more than two to 10 seconds.” Because the video had no sound, the NCAA looked for nonverbal communication that indicated instruction was taking place.
KU and the NCAA interviewed Coaxum, Ducote, then-special teams coach Mike Ekeler, Miles and two KU athletes, whose names were redacted in the NCAA response. Coaxum and Ducote confirmed athlete instruction on limited occasions, while Miles said he was present for many of those instances, though he only witnessed Coaxum and Ducote communicating with Ekeler in practice.
Ekeler reported to the NCAA he was not aware Ducote or Coaxum were committing violations, while the two athletes said Ducote and Coaxum did not provide technical or tactical instruction in practices or meetings.
The NCAA said its final conclusion was that the violations be deemed Level III “because of their limited nature and less-than-minimal competitive advantage.”
The NCAA didn’t completely absolve Miles, though, stating he “should have recognized the violations and stopped the activity, even if it was Level III in nature.”
Miles escaped a potential head coach responsibility violation, the NCAA said, because a “coach control” charge is reserved strictly for more severe Level I and Level II violations.
The NCAA’s response, however, did not back off Level II violations under Beaty, even after the former coach questioned their classification in his own response to the NCAA.
The amended notice of allegations detail these infractions, claiming former KU video coordinator Jeff Love participated in “technical and tactical instruction” with players. Specifically, Love met with the quarterbacks six to 10 times in meeting to provide instruction, sent educational videos through text messages and gave occasional instruction during KU practices.
