Weekend Wake Up: The Saga of Mike Leach and Texas Tech Continues a Descent Into Madness

It Gets Deeper. Texas Tech won the Alamo Bowl Saturday night, beating Michigan State 41-31 behind 473 passing yards from Taylor Potts and Steven Sheffield and 182 combined rushing and receiving yards from Baron Batch. But that was neither the story of the broadcast, nor their story of the day: It, like everything else pertaining to the football part of the Red Raiders’ football program, got sideswiped by a feud that seems destined to torpedo the program.

That’s because a Texas Tech trainer who originally supported fired coach Mike Leach’s decision to put receiver Adam James in a dark place reneged on his word in affadavits released Saturday by the university. Steve Pincock gave a statement to representatives for Leach earlier this week that alleged James’ “non-caring attitude” is part of what sent him to a “sports medicine garage” for punishment; in the affadavit, he is quoted as saying “I do not agree with this form of treatment for anyone.”

Pincock, still employed by the university, is probably walking back his statements to salvage his job. That’s understandable. It’s less comprehensible that the Leach/Tech dispute is not even a week old, is already this contentious, and will no doubt get uglier as time wears on.

Part of that is attributable to ESPN. Their broadcast of the Alamo Bowl verged on travesty, announcers Mike Patrick and Bob Davie focusing on the off-field issue of Leach’s firing as the production truck cued up snippets of Leach’s interview with ESPN in a game that remained close throughout. Twitter blew up with complaints that the announcers and network were rendering the game unwatchable, from slips of the tongue to general incompetence to presenting a one-sided account of the Leach maelstrom. It was another lump for ESPN, which has taken its fair share in the past week for permitting analyst Craig James, Adam’s father, to use air time to knock Leach.

It was also a terrible end to a generally awful day of college football. We’ll get to more of that later. Texas Tech may never see this side of January again, though. What competent coach would want to dip toes into this shark pool?

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