The Downfall Of Different: What Really Doomed Mike Leach At Texas Tech

At first glance, the Mike Leach story might look like a dysfunctional relationship brought to its inevitable conclusion. Between player and coach. Coach and university. Or coach and decency.

That last one is sure to be what resonates with a lot of people. On Monday, before we’d even begun to process this, I offered the following reaction: “At a time when the media’s already on high alert about bullying college football coaches, he’s gone and locked a player in a closet ... apparently because the player was reluctant to return prematurely after he’d suffered a concussion.” And now, others have emerged to echo those sentiments, as Jay Mariotti writes of a coach run amok, “If anyone should be placed in solitary confinement and wrapped in a straitjacket under lock and key, it’s Leach. What a friggin’ lunatic.”