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

[thehill98]

I sure hope most of y’all are right about Pruitt. I hope he’s the greatest coach we ever had, but to say we’ve got the right guy and he is definitely better than Leach is a huge stretch. He’s done pretty well coaching two different bad teams to success in two P5 conferences. I saw a lot of people say that we should only go after big name coaches with track records, and I think Leach fit the bill as good as most outside of 4 or 5 guys.

 

[DiderotsGhost]

So you say some good points but please explain why no big time P5 team has given him a job?

Explain why P5 programs hired Derek Dooley, Ron Zook, Bill Callahan, and Charlie Weis? You're assuming P5 ADs are paragons of knowledge, rather than highly political figures doing the bidding of power-crazed donors and politically correct university admins.

Even more importantly, do you remember ESPN running him Leach of Lubbock based on a false allegation by whiny crybaby (*) Craig James? Leach, if you recall, sued Texas Tech for wrongful termination; he recently filed yet another lawsuit against Texas Tech. Risk-averse political ADs don't like guys who go around telling the truth and filing lawsuits.

And as 05 said, Leach doesn't really kiss anybody's butt.

I'm not surprised the politicians in the AD office and the fragile-ego donors don't like Leach. Happens all the time in the corporate world, as well. Incentives are rarely to "hire the best person."


(*) I feel like "whiny crybaby" is fair here. Craig James tried to get Leach fired because he didn't give preferential treatment to his son, who was a crappy football player.

 

[Pride85]

You think it might make him cry?

If he cared enough to read their posts, nah.

 

[Behr]

Lol, never fails.

 

[BeecherVol]

Leach is a very good coach. And we'll never know if that could have meant championships at UT.

Theres more to Leach being stuck in Pullman, Wa than just the lawsuit from the Tech days. He was at Tech longer than he's been at WSU with just as much success and just as many opportunities to move up. Id bet he's there for a decade or more unless some troubles arise.

 

[DiderotsGhost]

Your counter to that argument is, in a nutshell (I've copied all the pertinent bits for easy reference), "but he had sub-SEC talent at those places."

I would never use the term "sub-SEC". USC, UCLA, Oregon, Texas, and Ohio State have better access to talent than Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

Washington State has one of the weakest recruiting bases in the Pac-12. It's one of the toughest programs to win at in the Pac-12. Based on the fundamentals, I'd say Wash State is among the toughest 2 jobs in the Pac-12 (alongside Oregon State).

I find the "he hasn't beaten the best" argument to be very weak. Steve Spurrier never did better than 8-4 at Duke. Bear Bryant only had one 10+ win season at Kentucky. It's tougher to win at Washington State than it is at Florida State, LSU, USC, or the vast majority of P5 programs.

But Leach went 11-2 at Washington State when programs like Oregon, USC, and UCLA didn't do nearly as well with much better access to talent. And he's consistently beat out programs with much greater resources and advantages.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

I would never use the term "sub-SEC". USC, UCLA, Oregon, Texas, and Ohio State have better access to talent than Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

Washington State has one of the weakest recruiting bases in the Pac-12. It's one of the toughest programs to win at in the Pac-12. Based on the fundamentals, I'd say Wash State is among the toughest 2 jobs in the Pac-12 (alongside Oregon State).

I find the "he hasn't beaten the best" argument to be very weak. Steve Spurrier never did better than 8-4 at Duke. Bear Bryant only had one 10+ win season at Kentucky. It's tougher to win at Washington State than it is at Florida State, LSU, USC, or the vast majority of P5 programs.

But Leach went 11-2 at Washington State when programs like Oregon, USC, and UCLA didn't do nearly as well with much better access to talent.

Sure, he went 11-2. Once at each of his two stops. That has been his pinnacle thus far, his high water mark. 11-2, without a trip to the conference championship game.

As for your second-strongest argument, the one pointing out other good coaches who didn't succeed at their first stops:

• 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.

*shrug* We are probably never gonna agree on Leach's potential at Tennessee, DG. That's okay. I respect your opinion, and this one disagreement doesn't change that in any way.

I'm okay with leaving this one where it is. You think Mike Leach has more championship potential than I think he has. Okay. *salute*

 

[FLVOL_79]

Shocker..the admin was behind all of the bunk coaching searches this last decade.

 

[Behr]

Sure, he went 11-2. Once at each of his two stops. That has been his pinnacle thus far, his high water mark. 11-2, without a trip to the conference championship game.

As for your second-strongest argument, the one pointing out other good coaches who didn't succeed at their first stops:

• 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.

*shrug* We are probably never gonna agree on Leach's potential at Tennessee, DG. That's okay. I respect your opinion and am surprised to find us in opposite corners here, but no two people ever agree on everything.

I'm okay with leaving this one where it is. You think Mike Leach has more championship potential than I think he has. Okay. *salute*

Easy for you to just agree to disagree, you're right.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Easy for you to just agree to disagree, you're right.

Easy for me, certainly, DG brings actual hard-nosed debate, gotta think carefully through what he's saying each time. Much easier to just leave it be, haha.

 

[XknoxvolsX]

I don't think we're on the same page at all here.

Mike Leach could've won a national title here. The ceiling at UT is much higher than at Wazzou or T-Tech.

The argument against him is weak. It's basically "Air Raid doesn't work" and "Leach has never won the big one." But the first is categorically untrue; the NFL is now filled with Air Raid style offenses where the QB is throwing 70%+ of the time.

And Mike Leach wins 11 games while getting recruiting classes ranked in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. It's not like Mike Leach has ever been competing with top talent. The closest he came was at Texas Tech in 2008 when he had Michael Crabtree and he beat Texas, went to a Cotton Bowl, and went 11-2. He's had even less talent at WSU than he had at Texas Tech.

Last year, WSU was ranked #65 in recruiting. Rutgers was #64. Vandy was #59. In 2017, WSU was ranked #44, behind Rutgers at #42, and a few spots ahead of Illinois (#46) and Duke (#47).

If Mike Leach wins 8-11 games with talent in the 40's, 50's, and 60's, imagine what he'd do with top 10 talent? The idea that Leach is a weak recruiter is also false. He actually significantly improved recruiting at both Texas Tech and Wash State. It's just that Lubbock, TX and Pullman, WA are not exactly "destinations." He's taken two of the toughest P5 jobs and succeeded wildly.

So I don't agree with the premise that Mike Leach couldn't win big. I think the case is mostly based on people not analyzing the details and *ASSUMING* that the Air Raid is "NOT REAL FOOTBALL" or some other nonsense.

Mike Leach would have similar success to Steve Spurrier at the right SEC program (btw, Spurrier didn't win a national title at Duke). He'd been a perfect fit at Tennessee. But it would've taken him 3-4 years to get rolling.

Nothing against Pruitt. I'm optimistic about Pruitt, but there are very few coaches out there like Mike Leach.

(I think most of the anti-Mike Leach arguments would be better used against Mike Gundy, who's track record on defense is horrendous. Leach has actually been pretty savvy in finding great discount DCs.)

I agree with every thing you just stated. I think had he come here he would have revolutionized the SEC once again as Spurrier did when he came in.

Also, I think that Pruitt and he are totally different. Both in demeanor and style of football. That leads me to think Fulmer pulled in Pruitt because of Butch ball and all that nonsense shotgun stuff that didn't work without Dobbs being back there. Now, that's just my $.02 but I do think that led Fulmer to look for a certain type of coach.

However, when I heard Leach was in the running, I was more excited about getting him here than any of the other candidates!

 

[VFL-82-JP]

DG, your position has been compromised. The Gator fan who pretends to be a Vols fan so he can talk down Fulmer and whoever our current coach is, he just agreed with everything you said. lol

 

[BubbaWms]

After the riot that ensued during the Schiano(sp) debochle, Leach was a top 3 for me THEN but today I am completely satisfied with where we are coaching staff wise. My hope and prayers will be that we can keep Pruitt, Chaney and Tee for at least 5 years....10 years for Pruitt and Chaney would be great !

 

[XknoxvolsX]

If you really want a stomach churner...supposedly Jimmy Sexton tried very hard to match Jimbo with UT when Jimbo was going through his divorce and having issues with FSU boosters. UT did not want Fisher, supposedly for the same reason being that he's too big to control. Does anyone think Bama boosters and AD control Saban, or the UGA people control Kirby? If you really want to attract a top candidate these days you have to give the free hand.

I read somewhere or saw a documentary where Saban asked the then AD if he could have complete control. There was a little back and forth and he was told he would. Had it not been for that, we may have beaten Bama a time or two over the past 7/8 years.

 

[Jack Burton]

Washington eats Leachs lunch nearly every year. So would UF, UGA and Bama. Leach would get smoked in the SEC.

Eh, I think he’d do fine against UGA and Bama because the style contrast and the talent pool is better in the Southeast. Against UF it would be first team to 70 wins.

At this point we’re gonna get smoked by those teams anyway. Might as well have a fun offense with some mismatches against our opponents.

 

[MikeVol44]

Leach is 8-18 against ranked teams at WSU.
Leach has a winning record over 1 team in the Pac-12 North--Oregon State.
Leach has winning records against 4 teams in the Pac-12 South--Arizona, Colorado, UCLA, and Utah.
He's 50% against Oregon, Ariz. State, and USC.
He's 1-6 against Washington.

His record against Oregon, Stanford, Washington, and USC is 9-15.
His best year was 2018 where WSU's SOS was ranked 65th out of 130.

Leach ain't taking WSU anywhere near the Final Four.

Our SOS last year was 9th out of 130.

Leach is an Offensive novelty at best......

 

[cobbwebb0710]

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.

The John Adams vs. Mike Leach exchanges would’ve been highly entertaining, that’s for sure.
GBO!!

 

[Smokey X]

I would have had a very hard time hating Leach. In addition to being a helluva coach, he’s hilarious and likable.

I guess if he kicked UF’s butt enough times I would have grown to dislike him, but man would he have been a great/fun addition to the SEC.

yeah but I think Orgeron could be more entertaining....but then again it would be really entertaining to get them both together

 

[MikeVol44]

I would never use the term "sub-SEC". USC, UCLA, Oregon, Texas, and Ohio State have better access to talent than Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

Washington State has one of the weakest recruiting bases in the Pac-12. It's one of the toughest programs to win at in the Pac-12. Based on the fundamentals, I'd say Wash State is among the toughest 2 jobs in the Pac-12 (alongside Oregon State).

I find the "he hasn't beaten the best" argument to be very weak. Steve Spurrier never did better than 8-4 at Duke. Bear Bryant only had one 10+ win season at Kentucky. It's tougher to win at Washington State than it is at Florida State, LSU, USC, or the vast majority of P5 programs.

But Leach went 11-2 at Washington State when programs like Oregon, USC, and UCLA didn't do nearly as well with much better access to talent. And he's consistently beat out programs with much greater resources and advantages.

Leach LOST to USC last year....and lost to Washington, too.

You just cannot rationally argue that WSU doesn't have access to the same athletes that Washington does. He's 1-6 against them.

Last year was his zenith.....

 

[vavolfan6]

Leach looks interesting from a distance, but if we had to deal with him for the entirety of the year, I think the media and the fans would grow tire of him very quickly.

Also, no way Leach would have been able to assemble a staff anywhere near the caliber Pruitt has. I don't think many people were doing cartwheels once we hired Jeremy, but I also don't think many realized the amount of respect other coaches have for Pruitt or his ability to recruit other staff members to coach under him.

 

[Behr]

DG, your position has been compromised. The Gator fan who pretends to be a Vols fan so he can talk down Fulmer and whoever our current coach is, he just agreed with everything you said. lol

Ah, I wondered what the actual point to all that garbage was.

 

[LA vol7]

Mike leach? No! He would’ve been a disaster in Knoxville.

 

[TNnative]

To quote Shakespeare, there was something rotten in Denmark when it came to our athletic department in 2017....

Shakespeare said that? I think you meant Confucius.

 

[SpookyAction]

Chaney delivered a Leach-type offense in 2012 at UT. It can be done again. Air Raid numbers with Pruitt defense (not Sal S) can bring back the glory.

 

[Vol$_Deep_11_9]

Happy with CJP but was downright giddy at the idea of Mike Leach being in Knoxville. Guy is goofy as a pet coon but is a smart guy. Would have made for some interesting press conferences to say the least