An ugly battle seems to be unfolding at Kent State, now that former head coach Kenni Burns is firing back at the school for his dismissal. While there’s not much he can do to defend his 1-23 record with the Golden Flashes, he is challenging the grounds of his termination.

Kenni Burns has filed a lawsuit against Kent State and members of the top brass for unfairly firing him and defamation. He was let go by the Program in April last year, after being put on paid leave from March 27. Kent State brought forward grounds for firing him for cause after he was found to have misused a work credit card (P-card) and received loans from a school vendor.

The former coach now presents his side of the story. In his complaint, Burns mentioned that he was not properly trained on how to use the card and that he had receipts to back up the expenses. These expenses on the card were flagged during an audit and were pursued by the investigation launched into Burns. He spent 16,000 using this card, The Athletic reported with the help of a public records request to seek the investigation report. But it wasn’t like Burns did nothing to tackle the situation.

To settle part of the problem, he sent the university a check for more than $7,000, and the university accepted and cashed it. Burns was going through major financial turmoil during his tenure at Kent State when his home was damaged by flooding. It forced him to move temporarily and spend extra money.

His lawsuit also explained the details about the money Burns took from the team’s booster and vendor, Mike Awad. The latter is the owner of a local restaurant and caters to the school during events. Burns allegedly took $100,000 in loan from Awad in 2023, which was to be used for home repairs. Burns had been paying Awad back in cheques until 2024, and had given back 109,000 by that time. But the investigation claimed that such transactions violated the conflict of interest and stood against the rules mandated by the Ohio Ethics Commission. However, it also found that there was no quid pro quo relationship with Awad, even though Burns used to take recruits and their families to dinner at his restaurant.

Burns also shockingly claimed the university acted with malice.  Back in 2024, while they were discussing his one-year contract extension, the university changed an important detail: they changed his termination clause. As per the original contract, he could have received around $2 million for firing, but in the new one, it went down to $371,000. Burns signed the contract, thinking nothing was changed, because his agent was not informed of it as well.

When the former coach did find out, athletic director Randale Richmond told him the contract would be changed to go back to the original version. But Burns now claims in the lawsuit that the university refused to do so later on. He also alleges that firing him was a “last resort” for the school to save money.

Kenni Burns makes yet another accusation against Kent State

Kenni Burns’s firing got messy when he wasn’t even given proper time to make one of the important decisions of his career. Per his lawsuit, while he was on leave and the investigation was ongoing, Kent State’s deputy general counsel, David Ochmann, contacted Burns’ attorney. The former had urged the latter to “quietly walk away” from the university, for a price.

Ochmann officially offered Burns $371,000, which was already stipulated in the new contract. But his dismissal would have likely been treated as not-for cause case, since the buyout was promised only on these grounds. Burns was given just one day to deliberate on the offer. Ochmann later reached out, saying that the university will fire him for cause.

For now, the university has made no official comment on the entire situation. Let’s wait and see how things unravel in this messy case.