Remembering Mike Leach, a revolutionary Renaissance man and a damn good football coach

Mike Leach was a one of one. 

He was a schemer and a storyteller. A revolutionary Renaissance man. 

Mike Leach was a curious and witty vagabond who lived a life thriving at BYU and Key West alike, ultimately bypassing a career practicing law for designing passing plays. 

Leach was a unique personality. A character, no doubt. Leach was someone who had a pet raccoon named Bilbo Baggins and wished we’d find the bones of Bigfoot. But don’t let that all overshadow the fact that Mike Leach was a damn good football coach, too. 

Mississippi State’s head coach died Monday night at the age of 61 after complications connected to a heart issue. 

“Coach Mike Leach cast a tremendous shadow not just over Mississippi State University, but over the entire college football landscape,” MSU president Mark E. Keenum said in a statement. 

“His innovative ‘Air Raid’ offense changed the game. Mike’s keen intellect and unvarnished candor made him one of the nation’s true coaching legends. His passing brings great sadness to our university, to the Southeastern Conference, and to all who loved college football. I will miss Mike’s profound curiosity, his honesty, and his wide-open approach to pursuing excellence in all things.”

Leach was 158-107 as a head coach, with seven seasons with at least nine wins in the likes of Lubbock and Pullman. His pass-happy offenses lit up defenses across three major conferences.

Hal Mumme, his mentor at Iowa Wesleyan, credits Leach for branding the-now famed scheme the ‘Air Raid,’ telling ESPN recently, “He came up with the name so that we would be able to publicize it, and it’s probably fitting since he’s been the guy who took it the furthest.” 

Leach didn’t invent Mumme’s offense, but he mastered it. 

Whether as an OC at Valdosta State, Kentucky or Oklahoma, or a head coach at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State, no one did more with less using simple stick, mesh or four-verts concepts. 

He was an ornery SOB at times, someone who was obsessed with toughness despite popularizing an offense that was mostly finesse. But Mike Leach’s bluntness was also part of his brilliance. His offense was actually really simple, but he never stopped tweaking, teaching, learning or perfecting. 

Today is a sad day for college football. The internet is flooded with beautiful tributes to the guy nicknamed the Pirate. 

I don’t have a personal Mike Leach story, but I’ve been in interview settings with him many, many times. I’ve chuckled at his takes on history, candy and favorite Netflix shows. I’ve marveled at the rare times he does give us a peak behind the curtain on his offensive genius. 

In his final SEC Media Days appearance this July, Leach walked up to the podium, listened to commissioner Greg Sankey give a nice long-winded introduction and resounded, “I appreciate that. Any questions?”

That was Mike Leach.

Back in 2017 as a Tennessee beat writer, there was a single late night where I thought I might be covering Mike Leach on a day-to-day basis. Few remember now, but Leach was an 11th hour candidate in Tennessee’s wild coaching search that December. Then-Vols AD John Currie had publicly swung and missed on multiple candidates, so he took a clandestine flight out to California to get the Pirate. Leach wanted out of Washington State, and for a few fleeting moments, it sure seemed like the Vol Navy had a new leader. 

But then the news started the leak, Currie was summoned home and promptly fired for even interviewing Mike Leach. The audacity!

It probably wouldn’t have worked out for Leach at Tennessee. But he definitely got a laugh at decisions the school made in his stead. 

While the college football community mourns the loss of such a storied coach and character, here are some of my favorite Mike Leach quotes, notes and stories to best remember the legendary figure. 

— After graduating from Pepperdine Law, Mike Leach went into coaching in 1988. He never played college football, but became obsessed with the learning the sport while playing rugby at BYU. He made 10 stops in his career, including a one-season stop as a head coach in Finland for the Pori Bears.

He started his career as a part-time coach at Cal Poly and capped it with an Egg Bowl win over Ole Miss at Mississippi State. 

— Mike Leach has a catalog of viral takes on weddings, candy and mascots. 

“I think candy corn is awful,” Leach said. 

“You know, it’s like fruitcake. There’s a reason they serve fruitcake once a year, because it’s awful. There’s a reason they only serve mint juleps once a year, because they’re awful. And there’s a reason they only serve candy corn once a year, because it’s awful. Now that does beg the question why they serve it at all, but, anyway, that’s my opinion.”

Personally, my favorite Mike Leach rambling press conference was his take on a Pac-12 mascot battle royal because it’s delivered with such a perfect combination of cadence and curiosity. 

The best two lines:

“Oregon, well the Duck might lose interest and just fly away and get out of there, which may be good advice under the circumstances.”

And, on Arizona State, “You’d have to get one of those Harry Potter activists to read up on how you kill a Sun Devil, because there’s a lot of outside stuff there.”

— At both Texas Tech and Mississippi State, Leach went on “fat little girlfriends” rants, saying just this year after a nail-biting win over Auburn that “Instead of playing hard you want to sit behind a shade tree, eat a fish sandwich and drink a lemonade with your fat little girlfriend.”

#MississippiState was up 24-3, down 33-30 but hung on to beat Auburn.

"Instead of playing hard you want to sit behind a shade tree, eat a fish sandwich & drink a lemonade with your fat little girlfriend. We shot for that too often"- Mike Leach

Woody Marks had his moment. RECAP: pic.twitter.com/P15Ts95chA

— Jon Sokoloff (@JonSokoloff) November 6, 2022

— Despite never coaching at a blue-blood, Mike Leach took his teams to bowl games in 19 of 21 seasons as a head coach. He was as three-time conference coach of the year, becoming the first coach to win the award in two different Power 5 conferences (Texas Tech: 2008; Washington State: 2015, 2018). 

— Leach’s coaching tree has the branches of a giant Redwood. Among his assistants who became eventual head coaches include Art Briles, Sonny Dykes, Dana Holgorsen and Ruffin McNeill. Leach coached Lincoln Riley and realized the future offensive wunderkind’s acumen, taking Riley off the field and turning him into a student assistant at TTU. Within five years, Riley was on his staff coaching wide receivers. 

Leach also coached Kliff Kingsbury, Josh Heupel, Neal Brown, Seth Littrell and Sonny Cumbie — all guys who learned and adapted his Air Raid scheme and became future Power 5 or Group of 5 head coaches. 

— Four of the nine best single-passing seasons in college football history belonged to a Mike Leach quarterback — No. 2 all-time, B.J Symons (5.833 yards at TTU), No. 3 Graham Harrell (5,705 yards at TTU), No. 7 Anthony Gordon (5,579 yards at WSU) and No. 9 Graham Harrell (5,111 yards at TTU). 

— An all-time Mike Leach story? In his lone season as Oklahoma’s OC — the year before he became a head coach for the rest of his career — he purposely left a fake play sheet on the field during pregame warmups of the Red River Rivalry. Someone on Texas’ staff found the sheet and gave it to UT defensive coordinator Carl Reese, who called plays thinking it was real only to realize he’d been fooled once down 17-0. The Longhorns were massive favorites and did rally to win 38-28, with Leach saying later, “It was a decent effort,” Leach said.

“But it would even be more legendary if we had won the sucker.”

RIP Mike Leach.