Kenni Burns went 1-23 in two seasons at Kent State before getting fired in April 2025, and it looked like the kind of ugly ending nobody talks about again. Instead it's turning into one of the messier legal fights in college football right now, and Kent State just lost a big round.
Pete Nakos broke the news that Kent State's motion to dismiss mostly failed, keeping Burns' case alive.
Kent State lost 9 of its 12 claims to dismiss former head coach Kenni Burns' lawsuit against the school, per court docs. Burns is suing the school for wrongful termination. Remains availble to return to coaching. https://t.co/Ud7Zh28Tyq
Per Pete Nakos, court docs show Kent State tried to get 12 claims thrown out and only won on 3 of them. That means 9 separate claims in Burns' wrongful termination suit are moving forward, which is a rough outcome for a school hoping to make this disappear quietly.
The backstory here is wild. Kent State fired Burns citing 'significant and repetitive violations' of his university purchasing card, plus alleged conflict-of-interest and code-of-conduct breaches. Burns says he never got proper training on how to use the card in the first place, and his attorney has called the whole thing a 'malicious scheme' to save money rather than a legitimate firing.
There's also a financial twist that's central to the case: Burns alleges that during 2024 contract negotiations, Kent State quietly rewrote his termination payout clause from roughly $2 million down to about $371,000 without proper consent — right before they fired him without cause. If that holds up, it's the kind of detail that makes a breach-of-contract claim a lot stickier.
For Kent State, this isn't just a headache from a coach who went 1-23. Losing 9 of 12 dismissal claims means the school has to actually litigate the substance of Burns' allegations, including the defamation piece, instead of getting an early exit. That's expensive, and it drags the athletic department and named officials like AD Randale Richmond deeper into discovery.
As for Burns himself, Nakos notes he remains available to return to coaching — which is a notable line given how his last job ended. Whether any program wants to touch a coach mid-lawsuit against his former employer is its own question, but the legal fight isn't slowing down anytime soon.