Kenni Burns will no longer serve as the college football coach at Kent State. He was officially fired on Friday morning, as was previously expected.
We still do not know exactly why.
There are a lot of different rumors surrounding the worst coach in college football. Most of them involve gambling or finances. The full truth has yet to come out and it seems like both parties are trying to keep this behind closed doors. I am interested to see if any further information comes out in coming months.
In the meantime, offensive coordinator Mark Carney will serve as the interim for 2025. Legendary alumnus Josh Cribbs has openly campaigned for the job but he is going to have to wait for the university to begin its national coaching search at the end of this upcoming season.
What we do know for sure is that the worst coach in college football has been fired. Burns led the Golden Flashes to a horrendous record of just 1-23 over the last two seasons. Kent State never showed any signs of life under the now-former head coach. At no point did the program build any momentum for the future through recruiting. A .500 record was unimaginable.
Although the university is undoubtedly thrilled to get out of Kenni Burns’ contract early, the way in which this all went down was less than ideal. Burns was sued by a local bank for more than $20,000 in unpaid credit card debt right in the middle of his second season. The case was later dismissed but it left a lot of lingering questions behind.
Kent State put Burns on administrative leave approximately four months later. It did not say why but he was ultimately fired for off-field reasons. There are a number of (currently unfounded) allegations that the 41-year-old was throwing games. Some people think his debt was related to gambling losses that required him to borrow money from other coaches. Those two things could potentially be related.
Neither of those theories are confirmed, nor am I suggesting that they are true. However, for the Golden Flashes to keep this investigation and subsequent firing a secret allows room for all kinds of speculation to run wild. Maybe one day Kenni Burns will tell his story. We can hope!