The art of the hire

Yet another great Mike Leach story, from Bruce Feldman ($$):

When Leach was at Texas Tech, one of the defensive coaches he interviewed, the late Carlos Mainord, who had previously worked as a defensive coordinator for the Red Raiders in addition to being Miami’s defensive backs coach under Jimmy Johnson, left perplexed about whether he was offered a job. Mainord called Sonny Dykes, a young Tech assistant he’d known for years because of his relationship with his dad, Spike Dykes, the former TTU coach.

“Should I get Jimmy (Johnson) or Spike to call him?” Mainord asked.

“Nah,” Sonny told him. “Don’t get them to call. You should just show up to work like you’ve got the job, and he’ll get so uncomfortable about it that he’s not gonna tell you to go.”

Mainord did just that and worked as Tech’s new safeties coach, spending the next half-decade in Lubbock.

“It really was the Costanza approach,” said a former Red Raider coach.

I wonder if they gave him the Penske file.

Today, in tortured analogies

Of all the hot takes in the world, this is certainly one of them.

That horse winning the Kentucky Derby today, is good example of why an expanded college football playoff is needed. That horse hadn’t won all the races leading up, but it got its chance and that’s what happened.

— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) May 8, 2022

Fergit, hayul.

Mike Leach, with a classic “other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” quote about his ongoing legal dispute with Texas Tech:

“In Lubbock, there were four bad apples that were determined to cheat me out of my salary,” Leach said Monday. “We know about that. And the other four years on my contract. And then continued to hide the documents illegally. But short of that, I thought everyone was great.”

Yar!

Today, in bidness decisions

Shot.

Mississippi State will play Texas Tech in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl on Dec. 28. Bulldogs coach Mike Leach has been an outspoken critic of players skipping bowl games.

“It’s the most bizarre thing in the world to me,” he told reporters last week. “They think they’re going to have a storied 10-year NFL career and they can’t play one more college game. That’s ridiculous.”

Chaser.

Mississippi State All-American offensive tackle Charles Cross announced on Friday that he is opting out of the bowl game to begin preparing for the NFL draft.

ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. lists Cross as the second highest-rated draft-eligible tackle behind Alabama’s Evan Neal.

A redshirt sophomore, Cross was named to the All-SEC team each of the last two seasons. He started all 12 games this season and allowed only two sacks in 919 snaps.

Boy, I bet that meeting was a little awkward.

What’s owed is owed.

Mike Leach isn’t ready to let go yet.

Mike Leach hasn’t forgotten about the money he feels Texas Tech still owes him.

The Mississippi State football coach was fired in 2009 after the Red Raiders said he mistreated Adam James, a player who had suffered a concussion, by putting him in an electrical closet for hours. Leach has disputed that account over the years, but Texas Tech still fired him for cause — negating much of a five-year, $12.7 million contract signed in February 2009.

But Leach feels he’s owed some of that money. If he had remained at Texas Tech on Dec. 31, 2009 — a day after Leach was fired — he would have received an $800,000 bonus. All these years later, as Leach prepares Mississippi State to play Texas Tech in the Liberty Bowl on Dec. 28, Leach is still waiting for a check.

“You know, great school,” Leach said Saturday. “I’ve got great memories there. They still owe me for 2009, the last time they won nine games, so maybe they’ll deliver the check. So we’ll see what happens there.”

I doubt it, but is there any doubt a winning Mike Leach won’t raise the point again in a post-game interview?  Hell, for good measure, he might bring it up walking off the field at halftime.

Pirate booty

Amidst everything else that went on this weekend, you may have missed this:

Texas Tech to face former coach Mike Leach and Mississippi State in Liberty Bowl. https://t.co/3MhDENsp3A

— AP Top 25 (@AP_Top25) December 6, 2021

Leach faces the school he still insists cheated him out of $2.4 million when they fired him?

That first presser is gonna be lit.  It might be better than the game itself.

“It was modest of him to say.”

Mike Leach responds to Junior’s praise of him on ESPN GameDay.

Yeah, Thursday’s gonna be fun.

“Because people are nuts.”

Mike Leach has a theory about why we’re seeing a rash of coach firings lately.  If you think it’s related to early signing day, you don’t know the Pirate.

“First of all, I think things go in trends. General societal mental illness, I think, and I think the other thing that contributes to it, and the same thing has happened with (athletics directors), it’s almost like there’s been a bounty on A.D.s. Then as a result there’s been one on coaches, too.

“I think that, to me, it seems like when people were all stuck at home with COVID (in 2020), they had all this nervous energy, and you saw a bunch of A.D.s and coaches fired that hadn’t coached a game for that season. [Like people said] ‘Well, we’re not doing anything so let’s fire somebody.’”

Oh.

This week in dancing

Okay, who did it better?

@ErrbodyAintAble pic.twitter.com/mUfqlvhrCy

— Timothy Carter (@tjcarter230) November 13, 2021

I WOULD DIE FOR MIKE LEACH pic.twitter.com/ZYCSOwbI2k

— Hail State Stool NATTY CHAMPS (@HailStateStool) November 13, 2021

Uhhh… so you were serious about that, Coach?

Mike Leach announces that about forty students answered his post-loss rant about a replacement place kicker.  They’ll host a tryout sometime next week.

“We’ve got to get their paperwork and all that stuff, and they have to be approved,” Leach said Wednesday. “And we haven’t seen them yet, so I’m sure it’ll come in all shapes and sizes.”

Lordy, what a way to run a railroad.