Let me play dumb

by HumanRobot , Cybertron, Thursday, February 19, 2009, 18:57 (6305 days ago) @ Jay

Why is he a guaranteed upgrade from Weis? I believe they share the same strength: QB and passing game development. We don't know if Leach could recruit well at ND, but we know Weis can. We don't know what Leach could do with our defense here, but it looks like Weis has at least a great defensive staff and players in place. Neither have had powerful running games over their tenure, although both have had effective running games at times.

Unfortunately, I think it's very easy these days to say "Coach X is doing great at school Y which historically sucks. He'd make our historically great program great." The lack of a consistently solid running game, matched with a prodigious victory rate over lesser schools with sporadic victories over the top programs indicates that he's running a "high variance" system, much like a hypothetical three-point dependent basketball team. When said team is having a good shooting night, they'll play with anyone, but they'll struggle when the three isn't falling. Likewise, when Leach's QB is on, they can beat anybody. When he's off, they don't have much of a chance to win. That sounds an awful lot like what we have already.

In other words, I think the issue with Leach is if he can go from coaching "little brother" to coaching big-time college football. In other words, is his system an equalizer or an amplifier for talent?

From your own article (whoever wrote this must be a genius):

"Mike Leach

Why you know him: He's the mad scientist at Texas Tech. Oh, he's also a pirate.

Background: After receiving a JD from Pepperdine, he decided he'd rather coach football than be a lawyer. He never played college ball. He became an assistant at Cal-Poly and COD before taking the head coaching position of the Pori Bears, an European Federation of American Football team. He later took over as OC at Iowa Weslyan and then Valdosta State, before taking the same job at Kentucky. He joined Bob Stoops staff for a year in 1999 until taking the Texas Tech head coaching job.

What's to like: Texas Tech is 0.510 all time, but Leach is 76-38 (0.664). He's 5-3 in bowl game. His offense would be a good match for our personnel. His record against elite coaches isn't all that great, but is good when you consider where he's at: he's 0-1 against Tressel, 2-1 against Miles when he was at Oklahoma State, 2-5 against Mack Brown, 2-4 against Stoops, and 1-0 against Tedford. Tech probably would not match an ND offer.

What's not to like: He's a Mormon and apparently that might not be the greatest thing with ND's administration. His teams generally have poor defenses. The pirate act is pretty weird, too.
What we don't know: He's in the midst of his best season at Texas Tech. How will it unfold? Will he sign an extension after this season?"