Mike Leach changed football. That’s only Hall of Fame stat that matters
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Five months. Five nauseating, never-ending months of the worst the sport has to give.
Instead of celebrating its best.
When Nick Saban is sitting in front of a Congressional committee bemoaning college’s football’s have and have-nots after benefitting from that very system for two decades.
When the NCAA is battling for its very life in a Lubbock County courtroom because a star quarterback who gambled more than 50 times on his own team, has found a high-priced attorney to argue that his degenerate behavior is really a mental affliction — and he should be eligible to play.
When presidents in the biggest, baddest conference in college sports — and the conference’s most prominent coach — say it might be time to break away from the rest of college football and do their own thing.
When tampering and the transfer portal is uncontrollable, and when we’re forced to add a rule that prevents coaches from leaving teams before the end of the season.
When it’s so bad, members of Congress and college sports dignitaries show up in Washington D.C. for a healthy debate, and you start feeling sorry for the members of Congress — who never met an angle (or a human being) they wouldn’t use.
When you simply can’t choke down another sick story, I give you Mike Leach. The quirky genius, the man who made us all laugh and changed the way college football (and the NFL) thought about offense before his untimely passing in 2022, is officially on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot.
All it took was the Hall last year massaging its qualifications of a .600 or better winning percentage, and the coach who developed the Air Raid offense so prevalent in football — with various concepts and principles filtering all the way to the NFL — now has an opportunity to be enshrined.
The process will begin with a preliminary ballot from National Football Foundation members and living Hall of Famers, and eventually move to the Honor’s Court — a specialized committee of athletic administrators, Hall of Famers and journalists who will make the final call.
The nattering nabobs of negativism will claim Leach’s 158-107 record (.597 winning percentage) at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State — arguably the three most difficult outposts among college football Power conferences — isn’t exactly Hall worthy.
Don’t be ridiculous. You change the sport for the good ― an impact so deep, your disciples are scattered all over all levels of football ― and you’re a lock for the Hall of Fame.
You win 11 games at Texas Tech — without Cody Campbell’s billions — and 11 games at Washington State, you’re at the top of your game.
You have Mississippi State relevant in the SEC, you’re doing some heavy lifting.
From 2000-2022 (21 seasons), Leach had five losing seasons. Didn’t have a losing season at Texas Tech, which has had seven since he was run off after the 2009 season.
Mississippi State, meanwhile, hasn’t had a winning season in the three years since Leach suddenly passed away while his team was preparing for a bowl game.
Three brutally difficult jobs, and two decades of winning and elevating the profile of every school. All while fighting the good fight for a sport he adored.
Leach wasn’t exactly thrilled about paying players before they stepped on a college campus. He saw where it was headed, and advocated for a merit-based system.
Imagine that, a reward for proving you could actually do the work at a high level.
“Sure, let’s just add a boatload of money into the equation and hope for the best,” Leach told me in the summer of 2022. “If you back end that deal, and have most of that money waiting for him at the end of every season based on performance, you’ve got a better chance of it not going off the rails.”
And now here we are, with Saban complaining and the SEC and Big Ten scheming and universities, coaches and players all gaming the system for the almighty dollar.
The damn thing is off the rails.
We’re three months from the season, when the game will finally overtake the bickering and bartering and deliver respite from the nonsense. It’ll be all about ball, all about Xs and Os and finding a way to get a first down and win a game.
The regular season will roll into the College Football Playoff, and at some point during the two weeks of preparation for the national championship game, the Hall of Fame will announce the 2027 class.
It’s a no-brainer, everyone. Mike Leach and the Hall of Fame.
His reward for doing the work no one else did.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Mike Leach belongs in the College Football Hall of Fame
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