Great Article on Mike Leach

I appreciate the fact that this poster looked at a lot of information to make his case. However, I don't think he addresses thoroughly the defensive issues glaringly apparent to even a casual observer of Texas Tech. He seems to lay most if not all of the problem on the lack of elite talent playing at Tech, especially when going up against OU and Texas. Considering that in the 7 years Leach has coached at Tech, two Big 12 teams have won the national title (OU 2000, Texas 2005) and Oklahoma and Nebraska have both played for titles in that time frame (Nebraska IIRC 2001, Oklahoma 2004?), there may be something to that. Getting top talent on either side of the ball to Lubbock has to be hard, especially competing against OU, Texas and A & M, not to mention Nebraska and the other heavyweights who scour Texas for talent. Still, the number of blowout losses against the top tier of teams as well as some puzzling losses against the second-tier teams like Oklahoma State make me question that thesis somewhat-surely the number of blowouts is a little too high to be explained solely by limited talent? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

It is clear that Leach is not a defensive minded coach, which is fine with me-most coaches have a specialty area. However, it becomes critical if he is the hire to either get a top-flight D coordinator or keep Walker and hope that he can continue to improve, field better talent and find a way to defend the spread attacks he faces. On the plus side in that regard, Dixon and Brink graduate this year.  

http://www.fanblogs.com/texas_tech/007046.php

Wow! I love Mike Leach. So many parts of that profile resonate with the things we've been saying.

First and foremost, he wants to win. In that sense, watching tape after a victory, not sleeping, planning -- he reminds me of Howland.

But, more importantly, I love the fact that his out-of-the-box thinking has helped revolutionize the sport.

Even more, I love that other football coaches don't like him, don't want to play against him, and won't say nice things about him. If we hire Leach, I promise you he won't get a wringing endorsement from Cheaty.

Although Leach sees "thinking mans football" as an oxymoron, the truth is that his intellectual approach to the game, his development and testing of hypotheses render somewhat moot his belief that football is nothing but a game of violence.

I now understand why the spread works. I now understand how he can create a scoring machine with marginally talented players. And, I now understand why TT seems to be stuck for three quarters and then explodes. Leach uses most of the game to study the D, then makes the adjustments necessary to wipe it out. And, he levels the playing field for his small O lines by running the other team's bigger D lineman all over the field for 30 minutes. When they can run no more, he unleashes the scoring machine.

Also, I can see why players love him, have confidence in him, and play beyond projected expectations in his system.

As a Texan (yuck, did I really say that?) As an exiled Californian living in Texas (that's better) I read about TT every day.

My concern has always been about TT's lack of D. However, I've got to believe that with a great DC we would play D under Leach. One "problem" he's had -- he's the antithesis of KD; he's loyal to his DC, who has stumbled, and will not throw him under the bus.

I'm glad I read the article. Had I not, I would have had concerns had Leach turned out to be our coach. Now, if we get him, I'll be the first in line to donate $$$ just to get a chance to have lunch with him. He's my kind of guy.

sjh

PS. As I've said in another post, I don't want DW retained, in any way. But, if DG and ML choose to keep him, I can think of no better way to school DW and our D in how to stop the spread than to have them practice against Leach and his O, every day.

READ THIS ARTICLE. If you care about who we hire, you owe it to yourself to learn about this most interesting coach. I doubt there is another in the nation like him. I think he is what we need. I hope you agree.

What a great time to be a Bruin!!! Great options. Great times ahead.

Not all that different...

"If you are the captain of a pirate ship [referring to Mike Leach], you cannot complain too much about lawless behavior - and Texas Tech is one of the most heavily penalized teams in college football - but still it's painful to watch a crew member drop treasure overboard."

This link shows that Texas Tech is in the top 25 for penalties, even more than UCLA. Again, maybe I am just nitpicking, but something to keep an eye on.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/sortables?stat=teammisc&sort=penalties&group=80&year=2007

But, I like Leach best.

We can make a choice to be the program of old thinking -- fit right in with all of the others or

We can make a choice to be the program that innovates and creates the new thinking.

Leach, with a solid D will give us a chance to change the paradigm, to set the path -- not just walk the old one.

Yes, there is some risk involved -- but none of the other choices are without risk. The downsides of all of the traditional coaches have been analyzed, at length, on this board.

The choice is whether we want to look around us at what is or in front of us at what can be.

I want to look forward.

sjh

PS. I'll be thrilled with any of these guys, just more thrilled with Leach.

If we had Leach, I wouldn't have to die every time we ran up the gut on first down a la Norvell (hey, it's good for 1-2 yards--without fail!).

I found this interesting:

Salary:

2008 $1.75 million
2009 $1.85 million
2010 $2.15 million

$800,000 bonus for staying through 2009
$200,000 for staying through 2010

Interestingly, his buyout seems low at: $500,000.

IF THIS IS ABOUT MONEY -- WE WILL LOSE
but I do not think it is about money.

Leach is a west coast guy -- went to Pepperdine law school and loves it out here. If he wants to move away from Lubbock, we win.

If he wants a chance at recruiting on an even basis, something he does not have in the Big 12, we win.

If it is about money, we will lose.

When oil prices are high, Texans do well. And, they spend. Our arts are thriving. Charities doing well. If it comes down to money, no self-respecting Texan will lose the battle to a bunch of sprout eating Californians. Word.

He regards receivers as raffle tickets: the more of them you have, the more likely one will hit big. Some go wide, some go deep, some come across the middle. All are fast. (When Leach recruits high-school players, he is forced to compromise on most talents, but he insists on speed.) All have been conditioned to run much more than a football player normally does. A typical N.F.L. receiver in training might run 1,500 yards of sprints a day; Texas Tech receivers run 2,500 yards. To prepare his receivers' ankles and knees for the unusual punishment of his nonstop-running offense, Leach has installed a 40-yard-long sand pit on his practice field; slogging through the sand, he says, strengthens the receivers' joints. And when they finish sprinting, they move to Leach's tennis-ball bazookas. A year of catching tiny fuzzy balls fired at their chests at 60 m.p.h. has turned many young men who got to Texas Tech with hands of stone into glue-fingered receivers.

The Texas Tech offense is not just an offense; it's a mood: optimism. It is designed to maximize the possibility of something good happening rather than to minimize the possibility of something bad happening.

"Our notion of balance," Leach says, "is that the five guys who catch the ball all gain 1,000 yards in the season." (The Indianapolis Colts last season became only the fourth team in N.F.L. history to have three receivers gain more than 1,000 yards in a single season.) The trouble with running plays, as Leach sees it, is that they clump players together on the field - by putting two of them, during a handoff, in the same spot with the ball. "I've thought about going a whole season without calling a single running play," Leach says, only half-joking.

"The only information he ever asks for at halftime is the distribution," Hodges [Quarterback] says. "He doesn't even care about the score. If Y has caught five passes and Z hasn't caught any, he wants to figure out how to get the ball to Z." Leach says, "You try to get the ball in everyone's hands because then it makes the whole offense harder to keep track of." If they aren't spreading the ball around, they aren't forcing the defense to cover the entire field. They are leaving empty spaces unprobed.

"That's the risk of playing 330-pound guys," Leach said later. "You get good push, but if you got to run around a lot, you get tired." Before the game, Leach had said to Hodges: "Get those fat guys up front and make them run. They're already a little slow. By play 40, they'll be immobilized." That was one reason he kept sending so many receivers on deep routes: to force the defense to run with them.

"He makes them nervous," O'Hagan [Leach's agent] says. "They don't like coaching against him; they'd rather coach against another version of themselves. It's not that they don't like him. But privately they haven't accepted him. You know how you can tell? Because when you're talking to them Monday morning, and you say, Did you see the play Leach ran on third and 26, they dismiss it immediately. Dismissive is the word. They dismiss him out of hand. And you know why? Because he's not doing things because that's the way they've always been done. It's like he's been given this chessboard, and all the pieces but none of the rules, and he's trying to figure out where all the chess pieces should go. From scratch!"