LSU coach Les Miles wasted no time returning fire following a Sports Illustrated article that called into question Miles' academic priorities. The five-part SI series, which Wednesday focused on academic improprieties at Oklahoma State while Miles was coach there, indicated that 13 former OSU players admitted participating in some form of academic misconduct, and 16 more were named by teammates for academic fraud.
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"The idea that someone would characterize the program that was run there as anything but right and correct ... did we work hard? You betcha. Did we make tough decisions about starting lineups? You betcha. But every guy was encouraged to get his degree, stay the course and fight," Miles said, according to nola.com. "I can tell you that people that were commenting on the state of the program weren't there long enough to figure it out. They heard me tell them attend class, do the right things and heard me routinely. I'm going to withhold further comment. I can tell you that staff, family and friends, anybody that sat in our meeting rooms, knew that this thing was done right."
That's hardly the description Terry Henley, an Oklahoma State academic advisor for football, provided to SI, however:
"There was never pressure [to cheat], but Miles was like most coaches who want to be somewhere else," said Henley. "They're going to do what they need to do for two or three years, and they're not going to have to deal with whatever the fallout is. So, no, he didn't promote academics."
Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter @ChaseGoodbread.