Leach goes full Leach at Mississippi State introduction
STARKVILLE, Miss. – Mike Leach turned to his left and looked toward the floor.
Leach heard the ringing of a bell. A quick glance told him that it was only Jak, or Bully XXI, shaking and scratching a few yards away.
Leach was more than 20 minutes into his introductory news conference as the 34th head coach at Mississippi State, but his spiel about the level of coaching in the Southeastern Conference wasn’t important enough to ignore the spontaneous movements of his new live mascot.
“You don’t want to get bit by him, I’ll tell you that,” Leach said as he pointed down at Jak. “You see that? That’s the dog version of a leather jacket. He’d be like the Fonzie of Bulldogs. You don’t mess with him.”
The stylish pirate
Leach didn’t get back to the coaches. He stopped right there, allowing the room to erupt in laughter before taking his next question. Leach has arrived at Mississippi State, and so have his antics.
One of Leach’s first stops upon arriving in Starkville last week was George Sherman Clothiers, one of the most popular places in town to buy formal attire. Leach was asked about his experience there.
He gave more than just an answer.
“What do you think of this suit?” Leach asked the crowd while spreading his arms out wide.
Then he smirked, gauged the room and stepped away from the podium to give viewers a head-to-toe look at his dark gray get-up. He accented the suit with a white shirt and maroon tie. Of course, there was an MSU logo on his lapel.
This time fans in the room at the Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex didn’t just laugh; they laughed, applauded and praised their new head coach for yet another moment of comic relief in the middle of a news conference that focused mainly on why Leach chose to leave Washington State to start anew in Starkville at 58 years old.
“Don’t get too used to that part of it, OK?” Leach quipped once more before waiting on another question.
His offense and his jokes
Even when Leach wasn’t trying to be as outwardly comical as he was when he changed the flow of his news conference to talk about Jak or when he modeled his suit, he was still quite humorous.
The Clarion Ledger asked Leach how feasible it will be to implement his vaunted Air Raid passing offense at a place that has historically produced running teams. “We’ve always been able to install it fast,” said Leach, who perfected the system at Texas Tech and Washington State. “I don’t think it will be perfect in a week, but I think it will be fairly sharp within two weeks.”
Those who caught the subtly of Leach’s sarcasm laughed. Overhauls of offenses take time. Leach hinted that he can do it in a couple of weeks.
He then gave a more real answer by saying that if successful NFL teams like the Patriots, Saints and Packers have adopted aspects of the offense, then he can undoubtedly install them at a place like Mississippi State.
“Most of the Super Bowls of the last eight, 10 years have had Air Raid concepts in it,” he said.
He talked about two keys to Air Raid schemes: attacking as much space as possible and putting the ball in the hands of skill players. Leach has been a mastermind at doing both over the last two decades. He doesn’t need help doing so.
He doesn’t need help inserting jokes into serious answers, either.
“I don’t know, if you guys come up with a good play to do that, maybe we’ll cut one of the ones we got and we’ll add yours,” Leach said. “We do that from time to time.”
Actually, that wasn’t entirely a joke.
Leach has literally called upon outsiders for advice on designing football plays. He helped teach a class at Washington State called “Leadership Lessons in Insurgent Warfare and Football Strategies” with former Washington state Sen. Michael Baumgartner.
Baumgartner served in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad during the Iraq War. Leach has developed some of the most prolific offenses college football has ever seen. University officials saw enough overlap in those two areas to create the class. The final project asked students to design plays Washington
State might use in an actual game.
“It was ridiculously exciting for me,” Leach said.
Leach turned his back to the masses and showed everyone how The Pirate turned professor while he was teaching his class in Pullman.
“Alright, we’re playing so and so,” Leach said as he waved an imaginary pointer in the air toward the screen behind him. “We have to fortify this, take care of that.
“Can’t let them attack here. We’ve got to get them here. Once we get them moving here, we’re going here. Boom!”
Why Mississippi State hired Mike Leach
That’s the type of character Mississippi State just hired as its next head football coach. But before Leach stepped to the podium and had a chance to show off all of his quirks and charm, athletics director John Cohen was at the microphone.
He made it clear why he hired Leach.
“We didn’t hire Mike Leach because he’s charismatic, but he is,” Cohen said. “We didn’t hire Mike Leach because he’s got a great sense of humor, but he does. We didn’t hire Mike Leach because he’s exceptionally bright, but he is. We did not hire Mike Leach because of his dynamic personality, but he’s got one. We did not solely hire Mike Leach because he’s a visionary and a pioneer in the modern game of college football, but indeed, he is.
“We hired Mike Leach because he’s a disciplinarian. We hired Mike Leach because he’s a brilliant tactician. Most of all, we hired Mike Leach because he’s a proven winner.”
Leach reached 11 wins in a season at two places that had never reached that total. Mississippi State has never won more than 10 games in a season. Your move, Mr. Pirate.