Because college ADs at big programs make "safe" choices and then they pay buyouts every 4 years on average and by safe I don't mean on the field play, I mean safe in the press conference. Leach is in his 19th season, he's coached to date only 2 NFL first round draft picks and has won 140 games in his career at traditional graveyard schools. He's never been fired from a job for any on the field issue and it turns out what got him out at Texas Tech was Craig James and his son fabricating a story. I wanted Leach badly because of his coaching tree and what he could have set us up for in the future. The biggest failing of Fulmer was having a bare coaching tree. It's nearly unprecedented to coach as long as Fulmer did and not even accidently have someone on your staff or from your team who becomes a good head coach. With where our search was in 2018, Leach was a walk-off grand slam hire. So of course we blew it. Leach has the best season in school history at both schools where he's coached.
To start 2019 Athlon ranked Leach the 13th best coach in college football, 73 spots ahead of the guy we hired.
In the 2020 Pruitt moved up to 29 spots to 25th in the Sporting News ranking and they made the caveat that their ranking might be too high for him. He was still well behind Leach who ranked 17th. Leach was 9th in the Saturday Down South top 25, Pruitt unranked. 247 Pruitt came in at 49, Leach at 28. But I'm sure everyone will say none of the people doing the rankings know what they are talking about etc.