Hours after Texas Tech fired Kliff Kingsbury on Sunday, a newspaper in Texas Tech’s backyard published a report about the guy who used to coach Kingsbury in Tech’s air raid. Maybe, the report said, that coach would be interested in replacing his former QB.
Mike Leach going back to Texas Tech isn’t THAT crazy of an idea
There’s one big, obvious stumbling block, but Leach-to-Lubbock might suit both sides’ goals.
James Snook-USA TODAY Sports
Don A. Williams of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal wrote:
In the wake of Kliff Kingsbury’s dismissal Sunday as the Red Raiders’ football coach, two sources told A-J Media that Leach is interested in returning to Tech, and one of the two said a large contingent of donors will lobby athletic director Kirby Hocutt to make it happen.
Of that donor push, Williams writes:
“The people who are supporting him, it’s not just one or two,” the source said. “It’s like a hoard of people and maybe eight or 10 that are like million-dollar-plus donors. It’s some serious folks.”
The note about a camp of Tech donors supporting Leach is certainly believable and would be extra important, given the context.
It tracks with support some Tech fans have shown Leach since the school fired him for cause amid a big, public mess in late December of 2009. Leach has maintained he shouldn’t have been fired for cause and should get $2.5 million in 2009 pay Tech didn’t give him.
A tiny handful of TTU fans rallied for Leach to get paid in 2017, but more remember him as the head coach the last time Tech was really good, in 2008, and the winningest coach in school history.
Leach has trained his anger on the state of Texas and its legislature specifically, because state law requires him to get the legislature’s permission to sue a state school in state court. Unsurprisingly, Texas state lawmakers have not let Washington State’s coach do that.
So, some things would have to be worked out. I can’t imagine Leach would take the Tech job without a resolution to the thing he’s been hopping mad about for a decade. Given that he’s had beef with a whole state government, that might be a big project.
It’s possible that Leach could never be Tech’s coach again for that reason. Tech’s also on the hook for about a $4.2 million buyout to Kingsbury, which would be a consideration ahead of whatever deal the school makes with its next coach. For argument’s sake, let’s say the parties all reconcile enough that it’s not a deal-breaker.
For Leach to go back to Texas Tech, he’d have to leave Wazzu. We already know he’s open to that idea in general.
Leach has had rumored connections to a lot of coaching searches during his career. But text messages that came to light after Tennessee’s debacle of a search for Butch Jones’ successor made clear that Leach was serious about taking the Vols’ job a year ago.
He was poised to meet with then-UT athletic director John Currie in California, before Currie got called back to Knoxville and later fired for leading a disorganized mess of a search. Leach had texted Currie he was waiting for him on a bike path.
“Let me know if I can ever do anything for you,” Leach texted Currie after they didn’t quite meet up. “I truly wish I had gathered you up and we had the first of many beers together.”
If Leach does want to leave Pullman, there’ll never be a better time than now.
His Cougars fell out of Playoff and Pac-12 contention with yet another Apple Cup loss to Washington, but they still went 10-2 and stayed in contention all year despite not being a recruiting power. Star QB Gardner Minshew will be moving on after this season.
In a year that doesn’t have one hotshot coaching candidate looming above all the others, Leach could be a desirable candidate at numerous schools, despite what one might refer to as his extreme Leachiness. Or you could just call it the possibility he’ll embarrass an institution by tweeting fake Obama conspiracy videos, then doubling down when called on it and making an even bigger public scene, or whatever.
Leach is 57, which is both young enough to get another head job and old enough that his window won’t be open much longer. That he’s coming off such an impressive season might only strengthen his desire to move now, if he ever wants to coach elsewhere again.
Leach was 9-3 when he made plans with Tennessee’s AD in 2017, but hadn’t been in Playoff contention and wasn’t leading such a highly regarded team.
For another matter, Tech’s roster would be a strong fit for Leach.
Leach would be leaving a good team that he takes to a bowl game every year and has regularly had in conference contention. He’s not a guy you hire to engage in a long rebuild. Tech’s a prototypical .500-ish team that could get into the Big 12’s upper tier with better coaching. Like Wazzu’s, the Red Raiders’ roster isn’t loaded with blue-chip recruits.
Kingsbury is an air raid guy, and he’s spent years recruiting offensive players to that system. Barring a lot of (always possible) attrition, Leach would inherit a depth chart that already knows how to play his way. And nobody in the modern game knows the pure air raid better than Leach, who was using it before its spread distribution concepts went mainstream.
Offense hasn’t been Tech’s problem, of course. But WSU’s No. 52 S&P+ defense this year is the ‘85 Bears compared to the standard Tech defense under Kingsbury.
Who knows if Tech AD Kirby Hocutt would really want him in the end, or if Leach would actually do it.
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