Mike Leach describes conversations with Tennessee in 2017: 'It was like something out of Shakespeare'

#126
#126
VFL-82-JP said:
  • Spurrier had 3 years at Duke before arriving in Florida. Leach has been a head coach for 17 years. Not much of a comparison.
  • Bryant won conference titles at both Kentucky and A&M before landing in Alabama. Leach has won exactly zero. Not a good comparison.
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But do you seriously think Spurrier would've won a national title at Duke if given 10 years? I don't. Spurrier is one of the most brilliant coaches in CFB history, but he wasn't winning big at Duke. In fact, Spurrier got slaughtered by Tennessee in 1989, his final season at Duke.

Also, while Leach has technically had 17 years as a coach, that's misleading. He had 10 years at T-Tech and 7 at Wazzou. It's not like he got to carry forward the progress at Texas Tech to Wash State. He started over and Wash State was a major rebuilding job.

Wash State was 7-29 the 3 seasons before Leach got there. He's 28-11 the past 3 seasons. So he's basically a +7 win / year coach over the previous coach. There are very few coaches in college football history that can say that.

Leach wanted this job bad because he knew it might be his final chance to head a program he could win a national title with. And frankly, I hope no other SEC school (e.g. Auburn) hires him, because he'd be a nightmare to face.
 
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#127
#127
unfrozencvmanvol said:
Leach would have been fun and given great press conferences. He would have run it up on some people and we'd have routinely had more wins than losses, but he'd have regularly come up short against the big boys. That's his MO, it wouldn't have been good enough for Tennessee fans. We may not be any better with CJP, but at least we don't know his ceiling in advance.
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You basically just said in that last sentence that CJP won't cut it
 
#128
#128
The coaching hire situation. Was so dire at the moment Leach's name surfaced, that I was downright giddy @ the possibility. Well at least for about a day. My gosh, for about 5-6 days it seemed like the tables were turned to a new candidate ever 24 hours. Then Bev finally stepped in and saved the train wreck by firing the chronie and hiring the legend. That was one craaaazy 2-3 weeks after the Shiatno protest manifested. Never seen anything like it.
 
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#129
#129
KeyVol14 said:
You basically just said in that last sentence that CJP won't cut it
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No, I just said CJP is an unknown, which is absolutely true at this point, after one season, we know neither his ceiling nor his floor as a head coach. How could we? Leach on the other hand has a long career at this point, much more data. The fact that Leach's career is long testifies that he is a good coach, however his track record also establishes that he is not a great one.

Pruitt may however be a great coach, or he could compare negatively to Leach after time, after only one season we don't know. I can fill in certain justifications for optimism and extrapolate my hopes for CJP as a fan, but that's what they are, hopes, right now we simply do not have enough data to rule much out on Pruitt, one way or another. That's the long way of saying the last sentence you referred to.
 
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#130
#130
VOLnMiami said:
It's not like Washington is some kind of pushover...People tend to forget Chris Peterson is their coach...Guy is amazing.
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Wasn't it also dumping snow in that game last year? To the point where between downs they had to shovel the yard lines?
 
#132
#132
With Leach, there would have been no NC. However, he would have likely made us a perineal 9 win team. That would have been a great jumping point for the coach that took us to the top.
 
#133
#133
BigOrangeTrain said:
Washington eats Leachs lunch nearly every year. So would UF, UGA and Bama. Leach would get smoked in the SEC.
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You do know that Leach was the offensive cord at Kentucky for a couple of years and lead the league in offense right?...They were electrifying however Hal Mummes defense's could get run over by peewee squad thus the lack of success.
 
#137
#137
VOLnMiami said:
You do know that Leach was the offensive cord at Kentucky for a couple of years and lead the league in offense right?...They were electrifying however Hal Mummes defense's could get run over by peewee squad thus the lack of success.
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Blah, blah, blah. Leach is where he belongs. In the minors.
 
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#140
#140
This is a surefire recipe of becoming a Cazillionaire:
Buy Paul Finebaum for what he's worth and sell him for what he thinks he's worth.

Cha-Ching... ;)

GO VOLS!!!!
 
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#141
#141
VOLnMiami said:
You do know that Leach was the offensive cord at Kentucky for a couple of years and lead the league in offense right?...They were electrifying however Hal Mummes defense's could get run over by peewee squad thus the lack of success.
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Yeah....how many games did they actually win???
 
#142
#142
DiderotsGhost said:
But do you seriously think Spurrier would've won a national title at Duke if given 10 years? I don't. Spurrier is one of the most brilliant coaches in CFB history, but he wasn't winning big at Duke. In fact, Spurrier got slaughtered by Tennessee in 1989, his final season at Duke.

Also, while Leach has technically had 17 years as a coach, that's misleading. He had 10 years at T-Tech and 7 at Wazzou. It's not like he got to carry forward the progress at Texas Tech to Wash State. He started over and Wash State was a major rebuilding job.

Wash State was 7-29 the 3 seasons before Leach got there. He's 28-11 the past 3 seasons. So he's basically a +7 win / year coach over the previous coach. There are very few coaches in college football history that can say that.

Leach wanted this job bad because he knew it might be his final chance to head a program he could win a national title with. And frankly, I hope no other SEC school (e.g. Auburn) hires him, because he'd be a nightmare to face.
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His record as WSU that you offer so much praise for puts him in the same category with SEC coaches like Jim Donnan, Ray Goof , and Ron Zook.
No one is doubting that Leach is a great offensive mind.

His +7 win/yr record as a Head coach was built in the Big 12 and the Pac-10 is a little bit misleading.
His career record as a HC is 61.5%......that ain't gonna keep a job anywhere in the SEC except for Vandy.
 
#143
#143
Behr said:
Meh, I'm probably the only one but Im glad that didn't happen. I would have taken him over Pruitt at the time, but I'm happy with Pruitt now.
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Agreed, but aren’t you a little curious to what having that weirdo walking the sidelines?
 
#144
#144
CA_Vol said:
Agreed, but aren’t you a little curious to what having that weirdo walking the sidelines?
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Not really. I think it would have gotten old and if he hadn't done as well as expected, this place would have been worse than ever.
I like Pruitt and I hope he turns out being the football coach I hope and think he is.
 
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#145
#145
orangelo said:
False, WSU was the 27th ranked defense in the country in a high scoring PAC 12, much higher than UT. His defenses are better than people give him credit for.
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I think if you did some checking, you would find that the Pac 12 was not their usual high scoring self last year. USC, Oregon St, Cal, Stanford, UCLA, Az, Wash, Utah, were middling scoring teams. Wazzou was an exception.
 
#146
#146
VOLnMiami said:
You do know that Leach was the offensive cord at Kentucky for a couple of years and lead the league in offense right?...They were electrifying however Hal Mummes defense's could get run over by peewee squad thus the lack of success.
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And back then, just like now, when UK faced the top teams in the conference Leach got shut down. Remind me how many wins Mumme got against UT and UF.
 
#147
#147
Behr said:
Not really. I think it would have gotten old and if he hadn't done as well as expected, this place would have been worse than ever.
I like Pruitt and I hope he turns out being the football coach I hope and think he is.
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I think you are right. Did we just become best friends?
 
#149
#149
VOLnMiami said:
The minors?...Really?...He would've lit us up like a Christmas tree last year....Your ignorance is absolutely hilarious.
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Lol. Freaking Vandy lit us up. Beating the crap out of us has been pretty easy the past few years. That says nothing.

I will ask again, if Leach is so good why isn’t he at a big time D1 program? And don’t embarrass yourself by claiming the he won’t bow to ADs nonsense.
 
#150
#150
BigOrangeTrain said:
Lol. Freaking Vandy lit us up. Beating the crap out of us has been pretty easy the past few years. That says nothing.

I will ask again, if Leach is so good why isn’t he at a big time D1 program? And don’t embarrass yourself by claiming the he won’t bow to ADs nonsense.
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I will say he has consistently won with programs that lack recruiting and talent. I would've liked him here if he had the right assistant coaches. To me he's similar to Mullen which seems to be working for Florida (although I hope I'm wrong).
 
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