Up until Mike Leach stands on the sideline of a title game, be it conference, nationwide or both, the Air Raid will constantly be seen as having a ceiling. And till his quirkiness is shown behind a podium at that champions press conference, many will always compose him off as too tough and/or too odd to push a program to the next level. He knows that. He acts like such talk does not trouble him, however it does. Thats why hes back in the Southeastern Conference. Your best chance to break through any ceiling, be it football success, credibility, or both, is to begin with the very best possible introducing pad. Not so long back, he thought he d never have the chance to base on that pad. Now he does, and as we all found out at LSU, hes going to pull out all the stops to ensure this possibility lasts.
An excellent coach can take his and beat yours and then take yours and beat his,” he stated. “Well, a truly good coach, he can be a great coach anywhere. Every coach is motivated by that at some level.
Consisting Of Mike Leach.
Or, as he composed in his 2005 memoir “Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life”: “The fact that someone coaches in the SEC does not indicate that hes any smarter than somebody who coaches at a little college or in high school. If some large unadulterated idiot gets employed in the SEC, that does not mean hes instantly a smarter coach, it just means whoever employed him made a mistake.”
Sean Gardner/Getty ImagesBut privately, to pals and sportswriters alike, he admitted wishing for any possibility he may have to bring his playbook south, especially as he watched other coaches, those he warned of with their simpler football abilities, landing SEC head jobs. As offensive coordinator under head coach Hal Mumme, a guy who rather literally looks like a mad football researcher, Leach spent 5 seasons directing record-setting QBs at Valdosta State, where he took a taste to Steve Spurriers “Air Ball” marketing project at Duke and changed it into “Air Raid” for his and Mummes hectic, attacking design of play. “Well, an actually great coach, he can be a good coach anywhere.
We must not have actually been shocked at what we saw unfold at Death Valley on Saturday. We shouldnt have been surprised when Mississippi State quarterback K.J. Costello, whom we had actually last seen driving a bulldozer at Stanford, spent the afternoon tossing his method past the similarity Dak Prescott and Nick Fitzgerald in the Bulldogs record book and after that sailing over names such as Eric Zeier, Peyton Manning and Tim Tebow in the SEC annals of single-game death. We most likely shouldnt have been wowed by a strategy that dismantled the defense of defending national champ LSU to the tune of 623 passing yards in a 44-34 win.
No, the real-time Air Raid users manual we witnessed as it read aloud in Baton Rouge definitely should not have actually amazed us, because the author of that playbook has actually been working on it given that 1998.
” I am here due to the fact that I wanted to play in this offense and I desired the difficulty of running that offense in the SEC, against the finest,” Costello informed ESPN on Wednesday early morning, promoting himself and then his head coach, whom he knows by means of previous Stanford-Washington State matches played in Pullman and Palo Alto, California, 2,200 miles west of Starkville. “I believe Coach Leach is here for those very same factors.”
2 RelatedHe is. Theres no doubt about it. He simply wont admit it.
During his 8 seasons at Washington State, Mike Leach was constantly extremely careful when picking his words about the SEC. At all 3 stops, he discovered himself fielding questions from fans, callers and barefoot rum applicants, all desiring to understand when and where he may coach again, and if it may possibly, ideally, undoubtedly, bring him back to a place amongst the college football titans of the Southeastern Conference.
Thats why he often went out of his way to sidestep any chance to overly applaud the SEC. Your level isnt special, your conference isnt special. Somebody coaches much better professional athletes and, in some way, they morph into something smarter?
Or, as he wrote in his 2005 narrative “Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life”: “The truth that someone coaches in the SEC does not imply that hes any smarter than someone who coaches at a small college or in high school. Yeah, he might be smarter, however then once again, he might not be. If some sheer untainted idiot gets worked with in the SEC, that does not suggest hes automatically a smarter coach, it simply suggests whoever employed him made an error.”
Or, as he stated told me simply this week, striking a little bit more down the middle: “Running our offense in the SEC was, and is always going to be, a fantastic challenge. But Ive had excellent difficulties with this offense before, and Ive also never ever questioned that it can work.”
Sean Gardner/Getty ImagesBut privately, to sportswriters and good friends alike, he admitted wishing for any chance he may have to bring his playbook south, specifically as he enjoyed other coaches, those he alerted of with their simpler football abilities, landing SEC head tasks. The following week, Jeremy Pruitt, a born-and-raised kid of the SEC, was worked with to lead the Vols.
Mike Leach was 56 years old and in his 30th year as a college football coach.
” I enjoy it right here where I am,” he stated the following spring, understanding full well the person he was talking with knew all the information of the missed opportunity at Tennessee. That fall, with Gardner Minshew behind center, the Cougars went 10-2 with last ranking of 10th in the nation. “I dont require to be in a particular region to validate my worth as a head football coach.”
Still, with a flight of adult beverages in his system while sitting in the upstairs lounge at Pullmans Etsi Bravo club, Leachs eyes would illuminate whenever he began recalling his life down South. As offending planner under head coach Hal Mumme, a guy who rather actually looks like a mad football researcher, Leach invested 5 seasons assisting record-setting QBs at Valdosta State, where he took a liking to Steve Spurriers “Air Ball” marketing project at Duke and changed it into “Air Raid” for his and Mummes hectic, attacking style of play. When a moms and dad began blasting an old WWII air-raid siren from the stands to keep the offense and audience inspired, the name stuck. Between video games, Leach drove all over the Southeast– not recruiting, but visiting the battlegrounds of the Civil War and American Revolution.
The stories that have actually constantly worked him into a laughing lather are the ones informed of his only previous SEC experience, the 1997-98 seasons at Kentucky with Mumme and quarterback Tim Couch. His trademark stone-faced scowl is removed by smiles and downright giggles when he talks about the skull-rattling noise made by the goal line fans at South Carolinas Williams-Brice Stadium, climbing the hill outside the locker room at Neyland Stadium to capture a look of the Vol Navy on the Tennessee River, and the second home of the Arkansas Razorbacks, Little Rocks War Memorial Stadium (what he still thinks to be the loudest stadium he has gone to).
His two all-time favorite SEC road trips were, coincidentally, LSU and Mississippi State. “Sitting on the floor right in between the toilets was exactly one roll of toilet paper,” Leach recalled in 2017.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP PhotoUntil last weekend, he had actually been to LSUs Death Valley just when. Instead, he was parked in a cage right outside the Kentucky locker room and poked in the butt with a stick to make sure he angrily roared at the Wildcats as they tried to hold their pregame conference.
” I have told that story a million times due to the fact that it was the finest away-game experience Ive ever had,” Leach remembers now. “But you know what makes it the very best? It wasnt the tiger or the crazy crowd or any of that. It was that we likewise won the game. LSU was a Top 25 team and we won by 3. Kentucky had not had a road win over a ranked opponent since the 1970s. We beat Louisville in our extremely first video game in 97 and we beat Alabama that year, too, and it was the first time Kentucky had beaten them considering that the 1920s. Tim set a lot of records– he finished 4th in the Heisman ballot [in 1998] It was all so much fun.”
Air Raid T-shirts were all over Lexington. Heading into that 1998 season, the trainee section started using face masks of Mumme and Couch. Kentucky sold out video games for the first time in forever. The Wildcats didnt simply beat archrival Louisville– they dominated them.
Then it was over. After 2 seasons, Leach was off to Texas Tech.
” You never ever wish to spend a great deal of time recalling in this company, however the Kentucky time, thats always seemed like a little bit of an incomplete grade, hasnt it?” Leach described over the summertime. “What if we d been there longer, had a chance to truly grow what we had started?”
The reality is, the roots were never planted very deep into the bluegrass. The nationwide spotlight that burned so bright after the 97 teams thrilling start had actually carried on elsewhere by midseason and was turned off completely when the group lost 3 of its last four to complete 5-7. The 98 group, powered by Couchs record-breaking Heisman finalist efficiency, regained the countrys imagination with that win at LSU, however it lost the Outback Bowl to Penn State and completed 7-5.
To old-school SEC fans and Leach critics, neither of whom are difficult to discover, the two-year Kentucky Air Raid experiment is the cautionary tale that needs to be paper-clipped to any story of this years LSU upset win as an indication of Mississippi State and the Air Raid being the force that will permanently alter the SEC. They stated the exact same when Leach and his Red Raiders and Michael Crabtree upset top-ranked Texas in 2008, and whenever his Washington State groups upset USC or Stanford and got off to many something-and-0 starts in the Pac-12. He still has actually never coached a conference championship team, or let alone lead a group into a conference championship game.
In between those big seasons and big wins, there are also the press conferences and social media posts that can be entertaining (search “Mike Leach on weddings,” or see his post-LSU tweet about pumpkin spice) however likewise get him called into in charges offices (see: his April 2020 tweet, which drew “WTF” reactions from multiple MSU players). On the other hand, the legal fights stemming from his Texas Tech termination continue, a battle the Houston examination company Leach employed mentioned simply two weeks ago will continue “up until he passes away.”
