Google “Mike Leach.”
Go ahead.
What awaits is an endless inventory of videos, stories and quotes, a search that immediately brings forth the unique, transparent, sometimes cranky, yet always crafty mind in college football.
This week covered about what you’d expect.
Washington State’s coach weighed in on the tenets of what a true “streaker” is, the time he was pulled over for going 22 mph in a 20-mph zone in rural Iowa, the time a Texas Tech fan plopped a cowboy hat onto Leach’s head after the then-Red Raiders coach toppled Texas. Oh, and sharks. Leach wants more shark-based collegiate mascots for universities located by the ocean.
This is life with Leach.
No. 19 Washington State at Utah<br>When • Saturday, 3:30 p.m.<br>TV • Pac-12 Network
In an era where coaches are fixated on saying everything but saying nothing at all, leaning on the exhausted one-game-at-a-time, one-week-at-a-time idioms, the 56-year-old offensive whiz is, well, always willing to take on the obscure. He’d much rather do that, then say, discuss the health of his starting left tackle.
“I think he’s probably the most stubborn guy in an industry full of stubborn guys,” said Bruce Feldman, reporter for Sports Illustrated as well as FOX Sports and FS1, who along with Leach, co-wrote the book “Swing Your Sword.” “[Leach] believes truly in what he’s doing. … He sticks to his plan, and no matter what his plan is, ‘We’re going to out-execute people no matter what they think we’re going to do.’”
It worked at Texas Tech, where Leach rose to coaching stardom featuring a trademark air-raid offense that captivated national audiences. And after his controversial exit — one he still is battling to this very day — Leach landed in Pullman, Wash., of all places, where he’s instilled what many call a standalone offense in college football.
Washington State coach Mike Leach speaks at the Pac-12 NCAA college football media day in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
The Cougars (8-2, 5-2) are ranked No. 19 in the nation ahead of Saturday’s matchup against Utah in Salt Lake City. Leach is the orchestrator, the brain behind an offense devised from studying the likes of BYU legend LaVell Edwards to football innovator Hal Mumme. Leach is a BYU graduate and was a student in Provo when Utah coach Kyle Whittingham was a star linebacker for the Cougars.
As for Whittingham’s first impression of Leach?
“The same as it is now,” he said. “Just a great guy. Intelligent, personable. You can literally have conversations with him for hours and hours, and you do a lot of listening. He’s doing most of the talking, which is fine with me. Because I’m just the opposite. I’d rather listen than talk.”
Just the mention of Leach’s name makes Whittingham, a notoriously intense coach, laugh.
“He’s a little bit — a lot — outside the box and off-the-wall,” Whittingham continued.
It’s not just Utah’s coach who sees Leach’s idiosyncratic ways.
A true Leach soundbite typically goes viral daily.
On Halloween night, Leach chimed in on candy corn, saying he believes the holiday candy is “just awful.” Asked to provide his insight on the best mascots in college athletics Monday, Leach discussed the lack of sharks, how the tiger at LSU football games could escape its cage at any moment, how Ralphie the buffalo at Colorado is “awesome,” and how there should just be more gorilla mascots across the country.
As for a live cougar on the sidelines in Pullman?
“I’m not against it,” Leach said. “You want it to be fun to be a cougar, I would think.”
In an interview with USA Today this August, Leach chimed in on the escalating tension with North Korea and the fact he’s never once turned on the desktop computer in his office. Leach has read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. Leach also has a photo of him and President Donald Trump in his office.
“I think he has always been that way,” Feldman said. “I think it’s just him feeling like, you know what, this is who I am, this is what I think, I’m going to say whatever I want and let the chips fall where they may. It helps him that he’s in Pullman, Wash., and not Los Angeles, Calif., or Columbus, Ohio, or one of those places. I just think that he’s probably a better fit there, where he’s a little bit more of a delicacy.”
Washington State has gone 37-36 overall and 25-27 in Pac-12 play since his arrival in Pullman in 2012. This year is shaping up to be potentially his best yet, although the Cougars first must get through the Utes and then a rivalry game on the road at No. 9 Washington to potentially win the Pac-12 North crown.
“I think it’s the best team I’ve had [at Washington State],” Leach said. “We’re still not very deep. I think our first layer’s pretty good.”
Leach hired an investigative firm based out of Houston to help settle the ongoing feud with Texas Tech a few weeks ago. He believes the university still owes him roughly $2.5 million after he was fired in December 2009. The school alleged Leach mistreated a former player. Leach countered by suing the school, but his case never saw the light of day after the university claimed “sovereign immunity” as a state institution, which according to a USA Today report, protected it from being sued.
Leach tweeted out a link to a story Nov. 2 around 8 p.m. Pacific time.
“If you look at his Twitter feed,” Feldman said, “he’s still engaged and trying to get his money back.”
“I don’t know what he has to lose by tweeting out the stuff he does,” Feldman added, “but short of his bosses saying, ‘Hey, we just want you focusing on whatever,’ I don’t think Mike cares. He’s going to do it.”
That’s Leach at his core: A mind who saw a different route before there was one, took it and refused to budge. His candor is magnetic, never afraid to share his thoughts, which is why questions in news conferences can veer from the magic of quarterback Luke Falk to a memory of seeing his first streaker at halftime of a high school football game in Cody, Wyo., or how you went north on I-15 to impress a date in the 1980s.
If you really liked someone, Leach said, you took them to the Old Salt City Jail, a restaurant that doesn’t even exist anymore.
It was located right down the hill on 400 South, less than two miles from Rice-Eccles Stadium.
WASHINGTON STATE COACH MIKE LEACH <br>Education • BYU, class of 1983; graduate of Pepperdine law school <br>Hometown • Cody, Wyo. <br>At Wazzu • Sixth year in Pullman, 37-36 overall record (25-27 in Pac-12) <br>Time at Tech • Was coach at Texas Tech from 2000-2009, going 84-43 and qualifying for a bowl game every season.
