Mike Leach, Air Raid and tremendous success
I write this with a heavy heart as Mississippi State Head Coach Mike Leach is currently fighting for his life after suffering a massive heart attack. Now I have never minced words when it comes to Coach Leach because a man like that needs all the words in the English language to accurately portray the Coach and man he is. He has single handledly shaped the landscape of college football with his version of the Air Raid offense that has propelled mid-tier college football programs to national attention and his coaching tree and offensive philosophies have helped defined the modern NFL as we know it. Let’s take a look back on his work.
Always an odd ball, while he was the OC at Oklahoma, he devised one of the craziest things I have ever heard in my life. Scripting plays to start a game was no new phenomenon in 2000 but Leach took it to another level. A highly anticipated matchup against arch rivals Texas saw the Sooners completely over powered by Texas’ strong defense. To combat this, Leach drew up a fake script. A script with a set of plays that OU would use except it was all a ploy. In reality, the fake script would make Texas believe OU would call certain plays while in reality, the real script would set up OU to score 2 quick TDs. Leach had a player drop the fake script on the ground where a Texas GA would eventually find it and bingo. Only issue was Texas would win the game because they were clearly the better team. However this was just the start of how Leach would change the game.
Leach would get his first HC job at Texas Tech where he would take a program that was a notorious .500 program and win 84 games there. He beat Texas when they were the number 1 team in the country, his QBs would smash program, conference and national record books and at one point had the Red Raiders as the number 2 team in the country. Michael Crabtree would go on to be a first round pick and Tech has failed to reach those heights after Leach’s departure.
Going to Washington State which was a program that had failed to have success since the nineties, Leach would win 55 games and have a season which they finished as the number 10 team in the nation. Leach would send multiple players to the league including first round pick Andre Dillard. Washington State hasn’t won more than 7 games in a season since he left.
Making his way to Starkville, Mississippi to inject the Air Raid into the Mississippi State Bulldogs, Leach wasted no time making an impression by upsetting the defending National Champion LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge. He would win the Armed Forces Bowl that year and QB Will Rogers emerged as the most promising QB prospect Mississippi State has had since Dak Prescott. He would cap off 2022 with a bowl birth and consistently having Mississippi State in the top 25. He would also defeat Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl down in Oxford.
Leach’s impact can not be understated. The Air Raid has reinvented passing concepts across America and receiving backs are commonplace on football teams. He helped launch the careers of Lincoln Riley, Kliff Kingsbury, Alex Grinch, Zach Arnett and many more young coaches. Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray are in the league due to his work. 3 Heisman winners are a direct result of his tutelage. However the most important thing is that Leach is a just a character. A coach that is well respected and always fun to watch. A larger than life personality that is just a little out there. Leach is what college football is about and though I am his biggest critic on the football field, he makes my job fun and we are all better for it. Pull through Coach, we’re praying for you.
