In some ways, Mike Leach was the Donald Trump of college football. Maybe that’s why Leach was a supporter of the former president.
Like him or not — and most players and fans of Mississippi State liked him very much — Leach was always entertaining. He had a habit of rambling on about things that had nothing to do with being a football coach. He could get away with being irreverent and politically incorrect. He put on a good show on the football field and in the press room.
Leach’s death this past week was met with sadness and lots of accolades for the impact he had on college football. He didn’t invent the “Air Raid” offense, but he perfected it, turning relatively pedestrian quarterbacks into record-setting phenoms every place he went.
Consider the following, as reported by The Associate Press in its obituary on Leach.
“Six of the 20 best passing seasons in major college football history were by quarterbacks who played for Leach, including four of the top six.”
He turned quarterbacks into Heisman contenders who never became stars in the NFL — a pretty good indication that it was Leach’s offensive scheme that was the main reason for their remarkable success in college.
Leach apparently wasn’t in the best of health. He had a heart condition and had been fighting a case of pneumonia for a good chunk of the past season. Still, at 61, his death felt shocking, especially coming just weeks after beating Ole Miss for the first time and leap-frogging over the Rebels for the better bowl game.
Prior to coming to Mississippi State, Leach had been successful, though sometimes controversial, at stops at Texas Tech and Washington State. It was in Starkville, though, where he seemed to find as good a fit as anywhere in his career. He didn’t quite get the Bulldogs to the top tier of the heavily competitive Southeastern Conference, but he had them headed that way.
It doesn’t seem fair that he was not able to show whether he and his offense could do it.
