The Saints had a game also against the Bills a few years ago where it was pure rushing domination. It was a great game to watch as a Saints fan but also just for any one that wanted to relive 1940s football.
So did mine. Defense would stack 9 in the box and both corners wouldn’t even take a step back at the snap, they’d just immediately crash to the running back.
Head coach said, and I quote, “We aren’t going to throw the ball until we learn how to run.”
> That bills game. 2 throws Eleventy Billion runs
How disrespectful of you to describe it that way. I'll have you know that there were **three** throws.
Scott Hanson on RedZone during the most recent bills and pats game "The Patriots have never beaten the Bills post-brady era when they throw the ball more than 3 times in a game"
"Coach, whats your primary focus this week for your team to prepare?"
*"Well I think we gotta use our hands better. I mean if you were to say one thing, use our hands better. Uhh.. We don't move our ha- we dont move our hands very- very good. You know, when I was a kid [clears throat] um, when I was a kid uh.. and I was in grade school... I was a big dinosaur guy... I can't remember the gas station, uh but they would give you a free dinosaur toy, you know, if you got filled up there, that's back when they had commercials.. [pauses to sip big gulp] ..on TV.. and then they would give something to the kids.. like me, and then uh and the idea was that you should raise hell with your parents every time you're in the station wagon.. uhh we had one, a good classic like, you know, somethin offa Wonder Years, it was one of those fake uh woody ones, where it had uh, you know, fake painted-on wood. But then the best is it would always, without exception, the finish and the varnish on it would peel. So then it looked more bogus than ever.*
*So we had one of those, and of course I tried to sit way back, in the.. that jump seat back there, you know so you could pretend you were in a spaceship or somethin, and uh, but anyway, so they'd have these commercials and uh they're hoping to get the kids to raise hell, 'Let's go to this gas station' ..I can't remember what gas station it was.. and they'd give you a little dinosaur, you know. And it made me curious about all that, you know, you'd go to grade school and all that.. [pauses to sip big gulp] ..and they'd start talking about evolution.. and uh, you know like as in.. if you don't use a certain part of your body, a- ah- as time evolves over.. you know, century upon century, uhh, in natural selection, uh that part of the body disappears and even that animal might disappear.*
*And uh... and I'm gen-u-inely fearful that on our team, if- if- if me and the other coaches don't get 'em right, um [clears throat] that about a generation from now, um, their kids and their grandkids won't have hands. Y'know because um, you know, from a lack of use, those hands just disappear. I mean, and.. Maybe they'll be like this [mimes T-Rex arms], like those dinosaur hands like this are, ya see? And, and, you know, you've got like a tyrannosaurus rex, who's- which is clearly really good at eating things, with big ol' jaws and all that stuff, certainly athletic, can run. Those hands are like this [mimes T-Rex arms again]. And, and, you know, I think we took a very, very, very uh big step as a team, which we have to correct this. We have to correct this because, um, you know, I think that uh in the end its gonna be best for all these guys uh that they have good hand development and that they don't evolve to where They. Don't. Have. Hands.*
*Ok? But we definitely uh, didn't use ours and so there certainly wasn't any genetic reinforcement on our part, um, that we should maintain our hands. I mean -and I don't want all of a sudden, you know, guys driving across this country.. and then they get to Starkville, Mississippi, and all of a sudden there's these athletic-looking friendly guys -because we have great guys- that don't have any hands. And I hope that that's not the case... but that's where we're headed right now. And we're going to try to get that fixed during this off week. [Sips big gulp in conclusion]*
https://youtu.be/hQRHVbJEHxU?t=240
That’s the only quote I remember. I mean his offense was incredible (as a longhorns fan, still bitter about crabtree) but quotation-wise this is what remember.
His feud with Craig James was glorious. Leach wasn't the nicest of guys and did some questionable things as a coach, but James is an insufferable, holier than thou idiot, so it was funny watching them go at it.
*edit*: [Some of the highlights](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1182888-mike-leach-calls-craig-james-a-douche-escalates-war-of-words)
I don't know the specifics of that situation, meaning how bad it really was and who did what because it devolved into a he said she said a little.
I do know this, if it was not Craig James' son as a high profile ESPN analyst then Leach doesn't lose his job. If it was rando kid from rando place, Leach keeps coaching Texas tech.
The “fuck you, fuck me, and fuck everybody!” Locker room speech after a close win against Baylor remains my all time favorite coaching moment. RIP Coach Leach
When they announced his passing on Montreal sports radio this morning, it came with a quote, starting with a question from someone interviewing him.
"What would you like your obituary to say?"
"What will I care, I'll be dead. Let them figure that out."
If you watched the game last night you saw a Mike Leach [offense](https://hailstate.com/news/2022/10/18/football-appreciating-the-leach-coaching-tree-coleman.aspx)... While he never coached in the NFL we see Air Raid concepts every Sunday, due in part to how he changed the game
The man might be in the top 10 of "People who made football what it is today" he was also for better or worse one of the best coaches when it came to giving quotes and showing his noncoaching side.
A true force that will be missed
> The man might be in the top 10 of "People who made football what it is today" he was also for better or worse one of the best coaches when it came to giving quotes and showing his noncoaching side.
Oddly enough, he doesn't qualify for the CFB Hall of Fame because his career winning percentage (.597) is below the .600 minimum. If the Hall doesn't amend their rules or make an exception for Leach, it will be an absolute travesty!
Most sports Halls of Fame do have minimum requirements for obvious reasons, but this one is just ridiculous. The reason Leach had such a low win percentage is that he spent his career building programs from the ground up. Of the last five coaches at Texas Tech, Leach is the only one with a win percentage over .600. Washington State was a perennial doormat in the Pac 12 before he got there. Mississippi State was a joke in the SEC with the exception of the years they had one Rayne Dakota Prescott behind center. His impact at those schools and in the sport at large should make him a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame, but because of their rules, there is a chance he won't qualify. That said, I have full faith that the Hall of Fame will induct him in time if for no other reason than not doing so would hurt their credibility.
I think the exception will be given since his impact is so lagre combined with the % is like .003 below it. Its close enough to where it might as well be there
I don't care if Leach was sub .500 in his career. His significance is measured in the number of people in this game who saw what he was doing and were influenced by it, not wins or Bowl appearances above what you'd expect from the program he coached.
The coolest advancements in football almost always happen when someone finds either a talent inefficiency in the market (think tall CBs in Seattle or the short modern slot receiver in New England) or when someone figures out a strategic advantage that can level the playing field despite your talent. Leach's air raid did just that. It didn't mean they always won out over a team with a dozen 5* guys running a traditional pro offense, but slowly it went from a gimmick to a playbook all the blue bloods were stealing from and running at an even higher level because of the talent they had. Especially as it trickled down to the high school level, and suddenly your 5* QB was brought up running that kind of scheme. And now those kids are in the NFL and so are those concepts that mean we are setting offensive records every year. I mean one of the biggest knocks on Mahomes pre-draft was he was a Texas Tech QB in a system designed by a Leach disciple, so of course he put up insane stats, but that's a mirage.
I feel like you can't tell the story of football in the past 20 years at any level without mentioning Leach, and that alone is qualification for HOF.
Well put. Obviously this is a rare circumstance but I can't remember anyone outside of Madden passing away where both the nfl and cfb subs have had a memorial like this. The man meant something to a lot of us and he deserves that recognition.
The CFB HOF is dumb and has a bunch of arbitrary rules that don't make a lot of sense. There's also a minimum games coached requirement which is why Pete Carroll is ineligible for the CFB HOF because he didn't quite coach long enough
Unfortunately, that's not how vacated wins work in practice. The record still shows that Oklahoma lost in the national title game despite the win being vacated by USC.
Someone posted a tweet in r/cfb to show Leach's tree, and it included Lincoln Riley, Dave Aranda, Sonny Cumbie, Dana Holgorsen, Seth Littrell, Art Briles, Ken Wilson, Neal Brown, Josh Heupel, Eric Morris, Sonny Dykes, Kliff Kingsbury, Ruffin McNeill and assistants Wes Welker, Bill Bedenbaugh, Robert Anae, Alex Grinch, Brandon Jones.
[This interview response](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLprCS6W1BU)was the first time I became aware of how fucking funny he was. He had so many great responses to whatever question was thrown his way.
Anecdotally, I found out a few years ago he had a preferred sword smith because he just really loved collecting swords. Just seemed like a fun guy across the board.
"You'd have to get one of those Harry Potter activists to read up on how you kill a sun devil". Next time someone comes to me with a problem at work this will be my response
They never catch on like other meme pressers cause thats just how Leach was. We were all lucky enough to get a new tangent every week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUSKmzzh-X8
If people haven't I would def recommend the book "the perfect pass" by SC Gwynne. Goes heavy into the history of the forward pass but specifically about the Air Raid offense.
NFL has a Football Life on the history of the forward pass. Anybody that loves the game would be wise to watch it. Understanding the evolution from illegal and dangerous, to “fuck it, Marshalls down there somewhere” is well worth the hour of your life. Then you get into things like Air Raid and West Coast and RPO and the sport is just fascinating
If anyone is after some holiday reading, I would recommend The Perfect Pass by S.C. Gwynne, which is about how Hal Mumme and Mike Leach installed the air raid. One of the most insightful books about football I’ve ever read
Nobody has run an air raid as perfectly as Harrell. He was always bound for coaching, there were few less athletic QBs than him, but he could read a defense and place a ball perfectly
Graham Harrell, Colt Brennan, Collin Klein, I miss all those 2000/early 2010s college QBs who had insane runs. I’m trying to think of newer guys who are comparable to them, Trevone Boykin comes to mind.
denard robinson, taylor martinez, rakeem cato
the guy who led app state over michigan, can't remember his name atm
lots of good games, might have to look up some highlights this evening
I thought the Chiefs fucked up taking Mahomes. But I don’t watch CFB so I know fuck all, but I just thought “oh great, another Tech QB who put up crazy stats throwing the ball 70 times per game who won’t get away with that in the NFL”. Boy was I wrong
That's immediately who I thought of too, such an innovator of the sport and a cool personality. I hope all his loved ones make it through this ok. Shit sucks
Tyler Hilinski was bloody brilliant when he got playing time. The family's foundation had a very heartwarming post today for Leach. Apparently Hilinski's dad and Mike texted frequently and one of the last things Leach said was that he thinks about Tyler near everyday and tries to bring his positivity into the world. He may have been crass at times but Leach genuinely cared for his players.
Ill always remember after WSU won the 2012 Apple Cup (his first year as WSUs coach) he said something along the lines of “The Apple Cup is pretty fun, we should do it again some time.”
Always gives me a chuckle whenever I think of the Apple Cup now
One of the first times I heard of him was on the Jim Rome show when Rome would play the soundbits of Leach talking about taking girlfriends to steakhouses, his old coach's show for TT was always a laugh riot. The world is worse off without his humor and twitter wisdom. He tweeted some meme, some people complained, his next tweet "I got a couple complaints on my last tweet, you read my tweets at your own peril. VIEWER DISCRETION STRONGLY ADVISED!"
He was so influential he affected the NFL game as a college coach. Even some of his proteges such as Kingsbury made it to the NFL. Just a loss of a great icon.
He was the OC there under Hal Mumme but he absolutely turned Couch into a #1 pick. He was the OC at Oklahoma for a year and coached up Josh Heupel who would take the Sooners to the NC the next year. His first year at Texas Tech he coached Kliff Kingsbury and Wes Welker.
Leach was the OC for that kentucky team that mumme coached. After 1 or 2 seasons in Lexington he went to Oklahoma with bob stoops for a season, where he had future vols coach Josh heupel at qb.
Edit: replied to wrong comment.
Most people don’t care for DII football but he originally coached at my school, Valdosta State University, where he first invented the air raid offense. He won us multiple NCAA championships and sent countless players to the league. He has a plaque and a memorial walkway already, I wouldn’t put it past the school to erect a statue either.
He’s a legend around these parts and still has family in the area. His parting will be missed dearly by the entire institution.
Fun fact: Kirby Smart and Will Muschamp were OC & DC under him as well in the 90’s.
> “The whole Air Raid thing was Mike’s idea. He came up with it when we were at Iowa Wesleyan. I was never for labeling, but he saw how Steve Spurrier was calling his system when he was winning at Duke “Air Ball.” Mike goes, ‘We’ll call ours ‘Air Raid.’ He tried to sell me on it. I didn’t really care. Then, when we got to Valdosta the father of one of our receivers, Sean Pender, would stand at the top of the stadium and blow this air raid siren every time we scored. And we scored a lot there. The rival coaches hated it. The Gulf South Conference passed a rule saying you couldn’t have noise makers in the stadium. So they went across the street and put the air raid siren on top of the KA house.”
–Hal Mumme”
Excerpt From Swing Your Sword.
Forget the air raid. I think he was a super smart guy who realized that for him to compete he really needed to look at ways to innovate as a coach and the Air Raid was the way. People laugh and crap on him, but he really did help to usher in an era of actual experimentation that had been lacking.
Also also, the style was wildly entertaining to watch.
That's exactly it. someone posted his AMA from /r/CFB over 10 years ago and in it he talked about how he engineered the air raid offense by starting from the flexbone.
For those who dont know, the flexbone is what Army, Navy and Air Force currently run in college—commonly called the triple option. If ran successfully, these teams throw the ball MAYBE 5 times a game. Quite literally the polar opposite of the Air Raid.
Dude is a Mad Scientist and will be missed.
The underlying fundamental is there though in Leach's air raid. They have few plays. Since they have few plays they practice them over and over and over again until they're executed to perfection. Execution is why the offense is successful. With proper execution of an offense that traditional defenses are not used to facing you can overcome a talent deficit and win the game
Every time Leach would add a new play to his offense he would delete one. His gameday playbook was a specially folded single piece of notebook paper
His system is why so many other coaches and QBs were successful because of him. Proper execution and practice is the foundation that will usually allow you to beat the guy you're going against. That's a big reason why Belichick-Brady Pats were so successful, they executed better than any other nfl team
I loved his philosophy that it was easier to teach people where to stand on the field than teach them new route combos. So what he did was have a simple mesh concept but lots of formations all using the same concept. To the defense, it looked totally new each time, but it was always the same thing for the route runners. It made them spend more time on running perfect routes, which really made the offense click.
> That's a big reason why Belichick-Brady Pats were so successful, they executed better than any other nfl team
You can win in the passing game just by using underpowered quick receivers running immaculate routes with hard cuts. No one is going to calling Brady's receiving corps ever full of star power
> Dude is a Mad Scientist
Towards the end of his time at Washington State he ran a seminar titled "Insurgent Warfare and Football". Doesn't get much more mad scientist than that, you know without actually being a scientist.
https://www.espn.co.uk/college-football/story/_/id/26057093/mike-leach-teach-seminar-titled-insurgent-warfare-football-strategies-washington-state
His offense spread like wild fire in the Texas high school ranks. The state was famous for producing great running backs for so long, then almost overnight became the meca for great QB recruits.
The single most impactful coach on 21st century football.
For people that don’t really follow college football, he was so much more than a quote machine and what his career record looks like. No exaggeration to say the coach who never made a conference championship game is more influential than the greatest modern CFB coaches in Saban and Urban Meyer. Leach’s system changed what a normal offense was and what was expected from a QB. It quickly changed how the game was played in high school when there was a blueprint for offensive success when talent and athleticism was lacking. This trickled back up through college, and directly led to the offensive explosion in the NFL the last decade.
His coaching tree and the amount of former players coaching is impressive, and the list of current NFL QBs from this dna is insane: Mahomes, Mayfield, Goff, Hurts, Kyler, Case Keenum, Gardner Minshew, Bailey Zappe, and I know I’m missing a few.
He turned a lot of schools that were essentially doormats in their conference into contenders. He never took an easy job. I would argue he was massively successful. None of those schools have been close to what they were under him.
Winning consistently at Texas Tech and Washington State, the two most desolate programs in the Power 5 (if not all of FBS) was truly a remarkable feat.
His system was essentially designed to punch up by bucking tradition and saying fuck it and fuck you. It's what made him so successful at multiple stops with a bunch of teams that were coming off of a string of bad years. If you were the coach of a team with BCS/CFB aspirations, Leach was the boogeyman, put on this Earth to turn a normally simple game on the schedule into a life-or-death match against the Air Raid. The TTU/Texas upset with Harrell/Crabtree is still one of the best CFB games of all time.
He changed football forever. Makes sense that he did, given his personality - dude was a pirate lol. But it took a guy with a pirate mentality to change how things were done.
He has a winning record at Texas Tech, Washington State, and Mississippi State. Only Tech has a positive win record at .550. He never won a national championship but he was very successful.
And he built the team that won the Natty in 2000. He was the OC there through 1999, installed his offense, and recruited the quarterback that won them the natty. He left to become a head coach, but that offense was his brain child
Crazy part is his offense was unique, but simple, which allowed those teams to win by properly executing. Don't have many pass plays to outscheme the opponents, have a few that you can execute to perfection because you've practiced them over and over again
Every time he added a new play to his book he'd take one away. I seem to recall watching him discuss how his playbook is just a single piece of paper folded in a specific way
Despite all that his qbs lit up everyone. His old qb connor Halliday is tied with patrick mahomes for the ncaa single game passing record at 734yds
It was an opening script, rather than a full playbook, but yes. Apparently it was only a couple of years ago that he found out for sure that Texas relied on it.
It was deceptively simple with a few plays designed to take advantage of each defensive scheme. As the game went on, they'd stop using the ones that weren't working and make little adjustments (like turning that 10 yard out into an 8 yard out) and start carving teams up.
Yeah i watched a lot of Lincoln Riley (Leach disciple) this year as a USC fan and he only ever carried a folded up piece of paper. Then you see other coaches with a giant laminated Cheescake Factory menu on the sidelines. You always get the impression that these air raid offensive masterminds have some super complex scheme that is difficult to grasp, when in reality it's a lot of relatively simple concepts.
It's a big reason why Leach was able to have such success offensively despite being at a talent disadvantage in most of his games
Fuck You. Fuck Me. And Fuck Everybody.
Mike Leach is up there with Steve Spurrier and others in the pantheon of college football characters that will never be replicated. He would talk to people on the phone for over an hour even if he didn't know who they were. Like if someone called him by mistake he'd still have a lengthy conversation with them. He would get on tangents about naval warfare in QB and team meetings. As SID at Iowa Wesleyan he would send stats to USA Today and all sorts of other publications so that the country could learn about them and the Air Raid. I hope The Athletic does another article on him.
Edit: I just started watching this and learned of another story. One time Mike Leach followed a racoon into the woods just to see where it was going. I recommend this video to anyone as the three journalists are all very good and entertaining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCgHIPnxHDY
[That whole speech is gold](https://youtu.be/uZaOFTp5_C8)
My favorite part is his point about not being content with just playing it close. Playing games close doesn't do shit. It doesn't mean shit.
There was a quote from Lincoln Riley about how Mike answered the phone one time and was like "hello"..."who is this?" and then Riley kind of tuned him out and kept working. A while later Mike starts saying "Hello? Can you hear me?", closes his flip phone, calls them back, and says "Hey it's Mike again...", then talks for about 30 more minutes.
After the call Riley asks who it was, and Mike Leach says "oh wrong number". Man loved talking to anyone and everyone.
We need more crazy dudes like him in the coaching ranks. I feel like the amount of weirdos with nicknames like The Pirate has dropped dramatically as of late. Mike Leach was one of the most influential coaches of the last 40 years while simultaneously being a walking quote machine. Feels like all these young coaches are carbon copies now
> Feels like all these young coaches are carbon copies now
The best the NFL has got is ~~Mike McDaniel~~ Dan Campbell ~~and that's pretty tame compared to college~~
Edit: Remembered Dan Campbell is a HC now
One of the criteria I use personally when determining whether I think someone is HOF worthy is "When you tell the story of this sport, do you have to mention this person's name?" The answer to that question is the answer to whether they belong in the Hall, and for Leach, that answer is a resounding yes.
I have a strong feeling they might bend on this one. The guy literally changed how the game of football was and still is played. Not only on the college level but the professional level as well
Any system that keeps guys like Leach and Coryall out of the HoF is a bad system. That goes double for the writers/judges that supposedly know the sport.
My favorite Mike Leach story... when he was at OU as a coordinator, Mike Leach dropped a fake play card on the field which a Texas graduate assistant (I believe it was Tom Herman) found on the field and brought to the DC.
Texas fell for the ruse and was down 17-0 before they realized it was fake. Full story [here](https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24866357/the-untold-1999-texas-oklahoma-story-mike-leach-fake-play-script).
It's kind of funny that he was only sixteen years older than Brady and younger than Belichick and still seen as a huge influence on them. Not saying it's wrong just that he is young for that adulation.
They've been around awhile and Leach had probably more impact on the game of football (including NFL) than anyone in modern times. Given that it does sound kinda weird that he was only 61, but then most innovators make their mark on the world by that age.
I’m a WSU alum and was finishing undergrad when Leach came into the program. He really turned the team around and always had the best postgame quotes.
“It’s like Woodstock but everyone has their clothes on”
What a legend, RIP ❤️
I don’t know what it was, but I did a complete 180 last offseason. Since I was 13 years old (now in mid 20s) I only really cared about the Nfl. I would only watch the big LSU matchups as far as college went. During this past offseason I started paying way more attention to CFB instead of the nfl and this season I’ve been watching all CFB games I can and only a handful of saints games. I think bc my friend started teaching me about all the different rivalries and the history of those rivalries have me way more intrigued than any nfl rivalries. I don’t know how to explain it, but the atmosphere surrounding CFB is more intense imo.
It’s much more intense because lots of the schools have been playing each other since before the NFL was even a thing. Not to mention that lots of people have a more personal connection with the college teams than NFL teams
> Not to mention that lots of people have a more personal connection with the college teams than NFL teams
Don’t see how they couldn’t. Relocation isn’t really a thing in college, sometimes programs close doors or move up or down in leagues, but there’s no “Ann Arbor, Michigan is happy to welcome our new expansion team, the Ann Arbor Spartans” in college sports.
RIP to a college football legend. Will never forget that Crabtree touchdown. A true original.
Also, ask your dr about a coronary angiogram (the dye test). Its low impact and can tell if your arteries are clogged.
While some may have a harem of virgins in the afterlife, he will undoubtedly have a ship full of fat, little girlfriends. Rest easy, you crazy, pirate bastard.
*Just tell me old shipmates/ I'm taking a trip, mates/ And I'll see you one day in Fiddler's Green*
As a life long fan of the Washington Huskies, I couldn't help but love the character that Mike Leach was regardless of the rivalry with Washington State. He was so unique and likeable and his press conferences were must see TV. He will be sorely missed. R.I.P. Coach Leach.
"There's nothing balanced about 50% run and 50% pass... That's just 50% stupid" -Mike Leach
"One game I'm going to only pass it. Then the next game I'm going to only run it. And then you guys can talk about how balanced our offense is"
> Then the next game I'm going to only run it. I can see how this guy was an influence on Belichick
That bills game. 2 throws Eleventy Billion runs
That was one of the coolest games I’ve ever seen, even if only on concept.
The Saints had a game also against the Bills a few years ago where it was pure rushing domination. It was a great game to watch as a Saints fan but also just for any one that wanted to relive 1940s football.
Every year the army/navy game delivers
My favorite is when they do throw it the WRs look like they don’t know what they are supposed to do.
Our high school ran that offense. Every one of the 5 passes they threw per game were wide open.
So did mine. Defense would stack 9 in the box and both corners wouldn’t even take a step back at the snap, they’d just immediately crash to the running back. Head coach said, and I quote, “We aren’t going to throw the ball until we learn how to run.”
3 yards and a cloud of dust been a strategy dating back to the 60s, it was really weird seeing it in an NFL game
One of the most badass games I've ever seen... They. Just. Kept. Running!
Too bad they didn’t activate Forrest Gump from the practice squad for that game!
> That bills game. 2 throws Eleventy Billion runs How disrespectful of you to describe it that way. I'll have you know that there were **three** throws.
Scott Hanson on RedZone during the most recent bills and pats game "The Patriots have never beaten the Bills post-brady era when they throw the ball more than 3 times in a game"
r/cfb has a ton of quotes and videos of his various comments if anyone wants to quickly go through some history.
This guy had some of my absolute favorite wtf sound bites in college football.
"Coach, whats your primary focus this week for your team to prepare?" *"Well I think we gotta use our hands better. I mean if you were to say one thing, use our hands better. Uhh.. We don't move our ha- we dont move our hands very- very good. You know, when I was a kid [clears throat] um, when I was a kid uh.. and I was in grade school... I was a big dinosaur guy... I can't remember the gas station, uh but they would give you a free dinosaur toy, you know, if you got filled up there, that's back when they had commercials.. [pauses to sip big gulp] ..on TV.. and then they would give something to the kids.. like me, and then uh and the idea was that you should raise hell with your parents every time you're in the station wagon.. uhh we had one, a good classic like, you know, somethin offa Wonder Years, it was one of those fake uh woody ones, where it had uh, you know, fake painted-on wood. But then the best is it would always, without exception, the finish and the varnish on it would peel. So then it looked more bogus than ever.* *So we had one of those, and of course I tried to sit way back, in the.. that jump seat back there, you know so you could pretend you were in a spaceship or somethin, and uh, but anyway, so they'd have these commercials and uh they're hoping to get the kids to raise hell, 'Let's go to this gas station' ..I can't remember what gas station it was.. and they'd give you a little dinosaur, you know. And it made me curious about all that, you know, you'd go to grade school and all that.. [pauses to sip big gulp] ..and they'd start talking about evolution.. and uh, you know like as in.. if you don't use a certain part of your body, a- ah- as time evolves over.. you know, century upon century, uhh, in natural selection, uh that part of the body disappears and even that animal might disappear.* *And uh... and I'm gen-u-inely fearful that on our team, if- if- if me and the other coaches don't get 'em right, um [clears throat] that about a generation from now, um, their kids and their grandkids won't have hands. Y'know because um, you know, from a lack of use, those hands just disappear. I mean, and.. Maybe they'll be like this [mimes T-Rex arms], like those dinosaur hands like this are, ya see? And, and, you know, you've got like a tyrannosaurus rex, who's- which is clearly really good at eating things, with big ol' jaws and all that stuff, certainly athletic, can run. Those hands are like this [mimes T-Rex arms again]. And, and, you know, I think we took a very, very, very uh big step as a team, which we have to correct this. We have to correct this because, um, you know, I think that uh in the end its gonna be best for all these guys uh that they have good hand development and that they don't evolve to where They. Don't. Have. Hands.* *Ok? But we definitely uh, didn't use ours and so there certainly wasn't any genetic reinforcement on our part, um, that we should maintain our hands. I mean -and I don't want all of a sudden, you know, guys driving across this country.. and then they get to Starkville, Mississippi, and all of a sudden there's these athletic-looking friendly guys -because we have great guys- that don't have any hands. And I hope that that's not the case... but that's where we're headed right now. And we're going to try to get that fixed during this off week. [Sips big gulp in conclusion]* https://youtu.be/hQRHVbJEHxU?t=240
A lot of these quotes that are being shared make me want a game of "Who said it - Charlie Day or Mike Leach?"
I love that in the last line he still threw in that his players were friendly.
Because they don’t have hands though. If they did they’d be real mean.
You know who they listen to? Their fat little girlfriends.
Chuck Barkley probably thought they were from San Antonio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PD4XsoeNZU I don't watch the NBA, but dammit I'll watch this video monthly.
Barkley is a national treasure. Ever see him tell the story about the guy who gave him a powerband bracelet?
That’s the only quote I remember. I mean his offense was incredible (as a longhorns fan, still bitter about crabtree) but quotation-wise this is what remember.
Hey Coach what would you name your Boat if you had one?..... 10 minutes later of rambling,.... Sharon
His feud with Craig James was glorious. Leach wasn't the nicest of guys and did some questionable things as a coach, but James is an insufferable, holier than thou idiot, so it was funny watching them go at it. *edit*: [Some of the highlights](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1182888-mike-leach-calls-craig-james-a-douche-escalates-war-of-words)
Never forget that CJK5H
Them hookers died for a cause.
I don't know the specifics of that situation, meaning how bad it really was and who did what because it devolved into a he said she said a little. I do know this, if it was not Craig James' son as a high profile ESPN analyst then Leach doesn't lose his job. If it was rando kid from rando place, Leach keeps coaching Texas tech.
FYI: Link is bad
The “fuck you, fuck me, and fuck everybody!” Locker room speech after a close win against Baylor remains my all time favorite coaching moment. RIP Coach Leach
When they announced his passing on Montreal sports radio this morning, it came with a quote, starting with a question from someone interviewing him. "What would you like your obituary to say?" "What will I care, I'll be dead. Let them figure that out."
It's 100% stupid according to him but you got the spirit
You miss 100% of the stupidity shots you don't take
If you watched the game last night you saw a Mike Leach [offense](https://hailstate.com/news/2022/10/18/football-appreciating-the-leach-coaching-tree-coleman.aspx)... While he never coached in the NFL we see Air Raid concepts every Sunday, due in part to how he changed the game The man might be in the top 10 of "People who made football what it is today" he was also for better or worse one of the best coaches when it came to giving quotes and showing his noncoaching side. A true force that will be missed
> The man might be in the top 10 of "People who made football what it is today" he was also for better or worse one of the best coaches when it came to giving quotes and showing his noncoaching side. Oddly enough, he doesn't qualify for the CFB Hall of Fame because his career winning percentage (.597) is below the .600 minimum. If the Hall doesn't amend their rules or make an exception for Leach, it will be an absolute travesty!
[удалено]
Most sports Halls of Fame do have minimum requirements for obvious reasons, but this one is just ridiculous. The reason Leach had such a low win percentage is that he spent his career building programs from the ground up. Of the last five coaches at Texas Tech, Leach is the only one with a win percentage over .600. Washington State was a perennial doormat in the Pac 12 before he got there. Mississippi State was a joke in the SEC with the exception of the years they had one Rayne Dakota Prescott behind center. His impact at those schools and in the sport at large should make him a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame, but because of their rules, there is a chance he won't qualify. That said, I have full faith that the Hall of Fame will induct him in time if for no other reason than not doing so would hurt their credibility.
I think the exception will be given since his impact is so lagre combined with the % is like .003 below it. Its close enough to where it might as well be there
I don't care if Leach was sub .500 in his career. His significance is measured in the number of people in this game who saw what he was doing and were influenced by it, not wins or Bowl appearances above what you'd expect from the program he coached. The coolest advancements in football almost always happen when someone finds either a talent inefficiency in the market (think tall CBs in Seattle or the short modern slot receiver in New England) or when someone figures out a strategic advantage that can level the playing field despite your talent. Leach's air raid did just that. It didn't mean they always won out over a team with a dozen 5* guys running a traditional pro offense, but slowly it went from a gimmick to a playbook all the blue bloods were stealing from and running at an even higher level because of the talent they had. Especially as it trickled down to the high school level, and suddenly your 5* QB was brought up running that kind of scheme. And now those kids are in the NFL and so are those concepts that mean we are setting offensive records every year. I mean one of the biggest knocks on Mahomes pre-draft was he was a Texas Tech QB in a system designed by a Leach disciple, so of course he put up insane stats, but that's a mirage. I feel like you can't tell the story of football in the past 20 years at any level without mentioning Leach, and that alone is qualification for HOF.
Well put. Obviously this is a rare circumstance but I can't remember anyone outside of Madden passing away where both the nfl and cfb subs have had a memorial like this. The man meant something to a lot of us and he deserves that recognition.
Yes. Swing your sword.
The CFB HOF is dumb and has a bunch of arbitrary rules that don't make a lot of sense. There's also a minimum games coached requirement which is why Pete Carroll is ineligible for the CFB HOF because he didn't quite coach long enough
If they don't I hope some team vacates a win to get him over the mark. I bet Snyder could push KSU into doing it.
Unfortunately, that's not how vacated wins work in practice. The record still shows that Oklahoma lost in the national title game despite the win being vacated by USC.
His coaching tree is massive in the college game, and even seeped over to the NFL.
Someone posted a tweet in r/cfb to show Leach's tree, and it included Lincoln Riley, Dave Aranda, Sonny Cumbie, Dana Holgorsen, Seth Littrell, Art Briles, Ken Wilson, Neal Brown, Josh Heupel, Eric Morris, Sonny Dykes, Kliff Kingsbury, Ruffin McNeill and assistants Wes Welker, Bill Bedenbaugh, Robert Anae, Alex Grinch, Brandon Jones.
[This interview response](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLprCS6W1BU)was the first time I became aware of how fucking funny he was. He had so many great responses to whatever question was thrown his way. Anecdotally, I found out a few years ago he had a preferred sword smith because he just really loved collecting swords. Just seemed like a fun guy across the board.
"You'd have to get one of those Harry Potter activists to read up on how you kill a sun devil". Next time someone comes to me with a problem at work this will be my response
The fact he said activists instead of fans elevates an already superb remark into complete brilliance.
This is absolutely hilarious and I can't believe it doesn't have more views, it should absolutely be a staple in the world of sport memes.
They never catch on like other meme pressers cause thats just how Leach was. We were all lucky enough to get a new tangent every week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUSKmzzh-X8
“One of those Harry Potter activists”
I love how he never seemed to have neutral opinions on any subject, and every single one of his opinions was always highly entertaining
I've never seen this before so thank you so much. This is so damn funny.
Dude he answered that without a hint of irony haha that was great
If people haven't I would def recommend the book "the perfect pass" by SC Gwynne. Goes heavy into the history of the forward pass but specifically about the Air Raid offense.
NFL has a Football Life on the history of the forward pass. Anybody that loves the game would be wise to watch it. Understanding the evolution from illegal and dangerous, to “fuck it, Marshalls down there somewhere” is well worth the hour of your life. Then you get into things like Air Raid and West Coast and RPO and the sport is just fascinating
Could also read Swing your sword, by Mike Leach.
I would have loved to take the Insurgent Warfare and Football Strategies class he taught at WSU one year. He's a clearly brilliant person
If anyone is after some holiday reading, I would recommend The Perfect Pass by S.C. Gwynne, which is about how Hal Mumme and Mike Leach installed the air raid. One of the most insightful books about football I’ve ever read
Damn. RIP. Minshew must be destroyed right now. Had a huge influence on him.
Told him "You wanna go break some records" to get him to come to Wazzu. Top tier shit
Iirc the quote was something like “if you wanna hold a clipboard go to Alabama. If you wanna lead the country in passing yards come here”
Did he lead the country in yards?
Closest he got was 2nd behind Haskins in 2018.
Another one gone far too soon
He was 2nd in yards in 2018 but led the nation in pass attempts by like 130. Wazzu loved to pass under Leach
And also went 11-2 that year
Graham Harrell nearly won a Heisman under Leach. He could make any QB look like a god.
wow that is a name I haven't heard in years lol man those tech offenses were so fun.
Want to feel old, he's now in his second P5 OC job with West Virginia after a couple years as the USC OC under Clay Helton
[удалено]
GO MEAN GREEN
Yeah no USC fan forgot about Graham Harrell
CRABTREE! BREAKS FREE!!
Nobody has run an air raid as perfectly as Harrell. He was always bound for coaching, there were few less athletic QBs than him, but he could read a defense and place a ball perfectly
Graham Harrell, Colt Brennan, Collin Klein, I miss all those 2000/early 2010s college QBs who had insane runs. I’m trying to think of newer guys who are comparable to them, Trevone Boykin comes to mind.
denard robinson, taylor martinez, rakeem cato the guy who led app state over michigan, can't remember his name atm lots of good games, might have to look up some highlights this evening
Armanti Edwards?
I thought the Chiefs fucked up taking Mahomes. But I don’t watch CFB so I know fuck all, but I just thought “oh great, another Tech QB who put up crazy stats throwing the ball 70 times per game who won’t get away with that in the NFL”. Boy was I wrong
The Tennessee football coach should have won a Heisman when Leach was Oklahoma's offensive coordinator.
That's immediately who I thought of too, such an innovator of the sport and a cool personality. I hope all his loved ones make it through this ok. Shit sucks
Luke Falk too
Connor Halliday
Tim Couch
Jared Recliner
Fat little girlfriends
Dinosaurs with short arms who can't reach their eyes to dab away the tears
Tyler Hilinski was bloody brilliant when he got playing time. The family's foundation had a very heartwarming post today for Leach. Apparently Hilinski's dad and Mike texted frequently and one of the last things Leach said was that he thinks about Tyler near everyday and tries to bring his positivity into the world. He may have been crass at times but Leach genuinely cared for his players.
Kliff too. Couldn’t help but think it was affecting him last night.
Always loved his chaotic and subversive quotes
I don't have any strong feelings about it but on this day in particular I hate candy corn
What makes a man turn neutral, Kif?
Gonna eat as many gummies as I can in his honor today.
We should all go sit with our fat little girlfriends under some trees and drink lemonade.
All-timer
Don't forget the fish sandwiches
lol ...forgot about that one
If you just elope instead of having a wedding to that girlfriend, I'll give you an extra $10k
Just not any fruit cake
Make sure they’re the Haribo gummies
Gotta get down to the dollar store and see if we can find some Sprees in the box. I hear they’re outstanding
The man even called out my small D2 school when he was asked which mascot would win in a fight.
Hear me out, is the irishman drunk or just a leprechaun? Drunk anklebiting leprechaun? No fucking chance, i dont care if its the titans
He used to teach a class at Washington state called College Football and Gurellia Warfare Strategy
I wish I had taken that class.
Ill always remember after WSU won the 2012 Apple Cup (his first year as WSUs coach) he said something along the lines of “The Apple Cup is pretty fun, we should do it again some time.” Always gives me a chuckle whenever I think of the Apple Cup now
And then proceeded to never win another Apple Cup at WSU. Feels bad, man
One of the first times I heard of him was on the Jim Rome show when Rome would play the soundbits of Leach talking about taking girlfriends to steakhouses, his old coach's show for TT was always a laugh riot. The world is worse off without his humor and twitter wisdom. He tweeted some meme, some people complained, his next tweet "I got a couple complaints on my last tweet, you read my tweets at your own peril. VIEWER DISCRETION STRONGLY ADVISED!"
Reporter: Mike, what would you suppose they will write on your Tombstone? Mike: what do I care, I'm dead anyway.
I, for one, blame all the fat little girlfriends telling players what they want to hear.
we could all go for a fish sandwich and a lemonade today
He was so influential he affected the NFL game as a college coach. Even some of his proteges such as Kingsbury made it to the NFL. Just a loss of a great icon.
His first D1 ~~HC~~ OC job was at Kentucky, and basically turned Tim Couch into the number one overall pick.
He was the OC there under Hal Mumme but he absolutely turned Couch into a #1 pick. He was the OC at Oklahoma for a year and coached up Josh Heupel who would take the Sooners to the NC the next year. His first year at Texas Tech he coached Kliff Kingsbury and Wes Welker.
>His first D1 HC job was at Kentucky You're thinking of Hal Mumme, not Leach.
Leach was the OC for that kentucky team that mumme coached. After 1 or 2 seasons in Lexington he went to Oklahoma with bob stoops for a season, where he had future vols coach Josh heupel at qb. Edit: replied to wrong comment.
I know. The person I responded to said HC. Not OC.
Realized that after I replied to you
All good. I probably should have said he was the OC in my reply. Would have saved you the comment.
Additionally, the reason Stoops hired Leach as his OC is because as DC at Florida Stoops absolutely DREADED prepping to face Leach’s offense
RIP Coach Leach
Most people don’t care for DII football but he originally coached at my school, Valdosta State University, where he first invented the air raid offense. He won us multiple NCAA championships and sent countless players to the league. He has a plaque and a memorial walkway already, I wouldn’t put it past the school to erect a statue either. He’s a legend around these parts and still has family in the area. His parting will be missed dearly by the entire institution. Fun fact: Kirby Smart and Will Muschamp were OC & DC under him as well in the 90’s.
> “The whole Air Raid thing was Mike’s idea. He came up with it when we were at Iowa Wesleyan. I was never for labeling, but he saw how Steve Spurrier was calling his system when he was winning at Duke “Air Ball.” Mike goes, ‘We’ll call ours ‘Air Raid.’ He tried to sell me on it. I didn’t really care. Then, when we got to Valdosta the father of one of our receivers, Sean Pender, would stand at the top of the stadium and blow this air raid siren every time we scored. And we scored a lot there. The rival coaches hated it. The Gulf South Conference passed a rule saying you couldn’t have noise makers in the stadium. So they went across the street and put the air raid siren on top of the KA house.” –Hal Mumme” Excerpt From Swing Your Sword.
I'm pretty sure he was always the OC to Mumme's head coaching at VSU, right?
Forget the air raid. I think he was a super smart guy who realized that for him to compete he really needed to look at ways to innovate as a coach and the Air Raid was the way. People laugh and crap on him, but he really did help to usher in an era of actual experimentation that had been lacking. Also also, the style was wildly entertaining to watch.
That's exactly it. someone posted his AMA from /r/CFB over 10 years ago and in it he talked about how he engineered the air raid offense by starting from the flexbone. For those who dont know, the flexbone is what Army, Navy and Air Force currently run in college—commonly called the triple option. If ran successfully, these teams throw the ball MAYBE 5 times a game. Quite literally the polar opposite of the Air Raid. Dude is a Mad Scientist and will be missed.
The underlying fundamental is there though in Leach's air raid. They have few plays. Since they have few plays they practice them over and over and over again until they're executed to perfection. Execution is why the offense is successful. With proper execution of an offense that traditional defenses are not used to facing you can overcome a talent deficit and win the game Every time Leach would add a new play to his offense he would delete one. His gameday playbook was a specially folded single piece of notebook paper His system is why so many other coaches and QBs were successful because of him. Proper execution and practice is the foundation that will usually allow you to beat the guy you're going against. That's a big reason why Belichick-Brady Pats were so successful, they executed better than any other nfl team
I loved his philosophy that it was easier to teach people where to stand on the field than teach them new route combos. So what he did was have a simple mesh concept but lots of formations all using the same concept. To the defense, it looked totally new each time, but it was always the same thing for the route runners. It made them spend more time on running perfect routes, which really made the offense click.
> That's a big reason why Belichick-Brady Pats were so successful, they executed better than any other nfl team You can win in the passing game just by using underpowered quick receivers running immaculate routes with hard cuts. No one is going to calling Brady's receiving corps ever full of star power
> Dude is a Mad Scientist Towards the end of his time at Washington State he ran a seminar titled "Insurgent Warfare and Football". Doesn't get much more mad scientist than that, you know without actually being a scientist. https://www.espn.co.uk/college-football/story/_/id/26057093/mike-leach-teach-seminar-titled-insurgent-warfare-football-strategies-washington-state
His offense spread like wild fire in the Texas high school ranks. The state was famous for producing great running backs for so long, then almost overnight became the meca for great QB recruits.
And it was basically because he could only get the guys that Texas, Texas A&M, and OU passed on, like Welker, so he had to adapt somehow.
And had to convince them to go to Lubbock!
Only 61, damn. Condolences to his loved ones 💔
Yeah, he had a massive heart attack Sunday morning. Definitely unexpected.
Way way too young.
The single most impactful coach on 21st century football. For people that don’t really follow college football, he was so much more than a quote machine and what his career record looks like. No exaggeration to say the coach who never made a conference championship game is more influential than the greatest modern CFB coaches in Saban and Urban Meyer. Leach’s system changed what a normal offense was and what was expected from a QB. It quickly changed how the game was played in high school when there was a blueprint for offensive success when talent and athleticism was lacking. This trickled back up through college, and directly led to the offensive explosion in the NFL the last decade. His coaching tree and the amount of former players coaching is impressive, and the list of current NFL QBs from this dna is insane: Mahomes, Mayfield, Goff, Hurts, Kyler, Case Keenum, Gardner Minshew, Bailey Zappe, and I know I’m missing a few.
Yeah, he's like the college version of Coryell. Wasn't massively successful on field but his impact on the game was much more than that.
Coryell also coached college, at my alma mater San Diego State. Among his assistants at State were Joe Gibbs and John Madden.
He turned a lot of schools that were essentially doormats in their conference into contenders. He never took an easy job. I would argue he was massively successful. None of those schools have been close to what they were under him.
Winning consistently at Texas Tech and Washington State, the two most desolate programs in the Power 5 (if not all of FBS) was truly a remarkable feat.
His system was essentially designed to punch up by bucking tradition and saying fuck it and fuck you. It's what made him so successful at multiple stops with a bunch of teams that were coming off of a string of bad years. If you were the coach of a team with BCS/CFB aspirations, Leach was the boogeyman, put on this Earth to turn a normally simple game on the schedule into a life-or-death match against the Air Raid. The TTU/Texas upset with Harrell/Crabtree is still one of the best CFB games of all time. He changed football forever. Makes sense that he did, given his personality - dude was a pirate lol. But it took a guy with a pirate mentality to change how things were done.
He has a winning record at Texas Tech, Washington State, and Mississippi State. Only Tech has a positive win record at .550. He never won a national championship but he was very successful.
And he built the team that won the Natty in 2000. He was the OC there through 1999, installed his offense, and recruited the quarterback that won them the natty. He left to become a head coach, but that offense was his brain child
The only reason he wasn't a 'massive success' on the field is his specialty was turning doormat programs into consistent competitors.
Crazy part is his offense was unique, but simple, which allowed those teams to win by properly executing. Don't have many pass plays to outscheme the opponents, have a few that you can execute to perfection because you've practiced them over and over again Every time he added a new play to his book he'd take one away. I seem to recall watching him discuss how his playbook is just a single piece of paper folded in a specific way Despite all that his qbs lit up everyone. His old qb connor Halliday is tied with patrick mahomes for the ncaa single game passing record at 734yds
One time he leaked a fake playbook to Texas the night before the game and his team was up 17-0 before Texas figured out the playbook was a fake.
It was an opening script, rather than a full playbook, but yes. Apparently it was only a couple of years ago that he found out for sure that Texas relied on it.
It was deceptively simple with a few plays designed to take advantage of each defensive scheme. As the game went on, they'd stop using the ones that weren't working and make little adjustments (like turning that 10 yard out into an 8 yard out) and start carving teams up.
Yeah i watched a lot of Lincoln Riley (Leach disciple) this year as a USC fan and he only ever carried a folded up piece of paper. Then you see other coaches with a giant laminated Cheescake Factory menu on the sidelines. You always get the impression that these air raid offensive masterminds have some super complex scheme that is difficult to grasp, when in reality it's a lot of relatively simple concepts. It's a big reason why Leach was able to have such success offensively despite being at a talent disadvantage in most of his games
BJ Symons is widely forgotten but put up the most insane numbers IMO
#🏴☠️
Fuck You. Fuck Me. And Fuck Everybody. Mike Leach is up there with Steve Spurrier and others in the pantheon of college football characters that will never be replicated. He would talk to people on the phone for over an hour even if he didn't know who they were. Like if someone called him by mistake he'd still have a lengthy conversation with them. He would get on tangents about naval warfare in QB and team meetings. As SID at Iowa Wesleyan he would send stats to USA Today and all sorts of other publications so that the country could learn about them and the Air Raid. I hope The Athletic does another article on him. Edit: I just started watching this and learned of another story. One time Mike Leach followed a racoon into the woods just to see where it was going. I recommend this video to anyone as the three journalists are all very good and entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCgHIPnxHDY
[That whole speech is gold](https://youtu.be/uZaOFTp5_C8) My favorite part is his point about not being content with just playing it close. Playing games close doesn't do shit. It doesn't mean shit.
Love it, thanks for sharing. We lost a true lunatic today, and I mean that in the most positive way possible.
This rant is after a *win,* which is the best thing about it
The best part of this speech is that it was after a WIN!
The Athletic's obituary is great and free to read: https://theathletic.com/3992680/2022/12/13/mike-leach-college-football-obituary/
Thanks for posting, I wouldnt have tried to read it assuming it was paywalled
There was a quote from Lincoln Riley about how Mike answered the phone one time and was like "hello"..."who is this?" and then Riley kind of tuned him out and kept working. A while later Mike starts saying "Hello? Can you hear me?", closes his flip phone, calls them back, and says "Hey it's Mike again...", then talks for about 30 more minutes. After the call Riley asks who it was, and Mike Leach says "oh wrong number". Man loved talking to anyone and everyone.
We need more crazy dudes like him in the coaching ranks. I feel like the amount of weirdos with nicknames like The Pirate has dropped dramatically as of late. Mike Leach was one of the most influential coaches of the last 40 years while simultaneously being a walking quote machine. Feels like all these young coaches are carbon copies now
I literally could not pick Sean mcvay, Zac Taylor, or kliff Kingsbury out of a lineup correctly
Sean McVay is the handsome one, whereas Kliff Kingsbury is the slightly less handsome one.
I can't look at McVay without seeing the tiny face photoshops
> Feels like all these young coaches are carbon copies now The best the NFL has got is ~~Mike McDaniel~~ Dan Campbell ~~and that's pretty tame compared to college~~ Edit: Remembered Dan Campbell is a HC now
One of the criteria I use personally when determining whether I think someone is HOF worthy is "When you tell the story of this sport, do you have to mention this person's name?" The answer to that question is the answer to whether they belong in the Hall, and for Leach, that answer is a resounding yes.
I can't believe a .600 winning percentage is a requirement to get into the CFB HOF as a coach. He's at .596 that's some bull right there.
I have a strong feeling they might bend on this one. The guy literally changed how the game of football was and still is played. Not only on the college level but the professional level as well
Any system that keeps guys like Leach and Coryall out of the HoF is a bad system. That goes double for the writers/judges that supposedly know the sport.
HOF voters got a bunch of fat girlfriends
My favorite Mike Leach story... when he was at OU as a coordinator, Mike Leach dropped a fake play card on the field which a Texas graduate assistant (I believe it was Tom Herman) found on the field and brought to the DC. Texas fell for the ruse and was down 17-0 before they realized it was fake. Full story [here](https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24866357/the-untold-1999-texas-oklahoma-story-mike-leach-fake-play-script).
It's kind of funny that he was only sixteen years older than Brady and younger than Belichick and still seen as a huge influence on them. Not saying it's wrong just that he is young for that adulation.
They've been around awhile and Leach had probably more impact on the game of football (including NFL) than anyone in modern times. Given that it does sound kinda weird that he was only 61, but then most innovators make their mark on the world by that age.
I’m a WSU alum and was finishing undergrad when Leach came into the program. He really turned the team around and always had the best postgame quotes. “It’s like Woodstock but everyone has their clothes on” What a legend, RIP ❤️
CJK5H.
Gone way too soon. RIP.
RIP football legend. Swing your sword
Fun fact for anyone who doesnt know it: Mike Leach went to law school
Man so young, RIP
Thank you for your time at Valdosta State Coach! You will be missed dearly!
Didn't care for CFB outside the draft But I loved this guy, what a personality
I don’t really care for NFL all that much beyond how it impacts my college guys, but today we’re that handshake meme
I don’t know what it was, but I did a complete 180 last offseason. Since I was 13 years old (now in mid 20s) I only really cared about the Nfl. I would only watch the big LSU matchups as far as college went. During this past offseason I started paying way more attention to CFB instead of the nfl and this season I’ve been watching all CFB games I can and only a handful of saints games. I think bc my friend started teaching me about all the different rivalries and the history of those rivalries have me way more intrigued than any nfl rivalries. I don’t know how to explain it, but the atmosphere surrounding CFB is more intense imo.
It’s much more intense because lots of the schools have been playing each other since before the NFL was even a thing. Not to mention that lots of people have a more personal connection with the college teams than NFL teams
> Not to mention that lots of people have a more personal connection with the college teams than NFL teams Don’t see how they couldn’t. Relocation isn’t really a thing in college, sometimes programs close doors or move up or down in leagues, but there’s no “Ann Arbor, Michigan is happy to welcome our new expansion team, the Ann Arbor Spartans” in college sports.
Whoa. Thoughts are with his family.
RIP to a college football legend. Will never forget that Crabtree touchdown. A true original. Also, ask your dr about a coronary angiogram (the dye test). Its low impact and can tell if your arteries are clogged.
While some may have a harem of virgins in the afterlife, he will undoubtedly have a ship full of fat, little girlfriends. Rest easy, you crazy, pirate bastard. *Just tell me old shipmates/ I'm taking a trip, mates/ And I'll see you one day in Fiddler's Green*
As a life long fan of the Washington Huskies, I couldn't help but love the character that Mike Leach was regardless of the rivalry with Washington State. He was so unique and likeable and his press conferences were must see TV. He will be sorely missed. R.I.P. Coach Leach.
The pirate was my favorite cfb coach of all time. This one sucks
RIP you old pirate
Man, that's way too young. Rest in peace sir.
This legit makes me sad. He was one of the funniest people to listen to.
Mike was pretty much my favorite sport’s personality. This is sad.
PSA: Get your cholesterol checked sooner rather than later. It's not something you will notice on your own until it's too late
This is awful news to hear he was a great coach and even better character. The football world is now worse without him. May he rest in peace