Leach's swashbuckling methods lead to Tech success

Mike Leach and the Red Raiders are 6-1 entering Saturday's matchup with Missouri. AP

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Mike Leach delivered the news flash to a visitor in his office last Monday. The update took place after a Leach digression on the similarities between bullriders and surfers ("Getting towed into a 30-footer is kind of like getting on one of those bulls"), but before his lengthy aside on the upcoming Rugby World Cup final between England and South Africa. ("I think the Springboks are gonna pound 'em. England's not in their head the way [the Brits] got into the heads of the guys on the French team.") So infrequently had the Texas Tech head football coach touched on football, for the first half hour of my recent 90-minute visit, that it seemed a non sequitur when he offered this nugget:

"How about Nebraska firing their AD today?"

Steve Pederson, the brains behind the hiring of Cornhusker football coach Bill ("I'm doing an excellent job") Callahan, had been let go by the university, a firing that bodes darkly for Callahan. It was the latest bombshell to detonate in the conference that, by my reckoning, leads the nation in off-the-field drama.

From Mike Gundy's forceful proclamation of his manhood at Oklahoma State to Dennis Franchione torpedoing his career at Texas A&M with an ill-advised newsletter to Nebraska plumbing new depths with each blowout loss, the Big 12 is the place to be for tabloid headlines.

The most indelible character in this soap operatic league is Leach, who is coaching in a sling these days, having recently broken his left elbow in a wipeout on his road bike. This is the same man who once suffered severe shin splints while rollerblading during a recruiting swing through southern California; a man whose infatuation with pirates is such that he occasionally flies the skull and crossbones from the video tower at Tech practices, and on whose desk lies a Bluebeard-era flintlock pistol.

"When I first met him," allows junior quarterback Graham Harrel, "I thought, 'Is this guy really the head coach? This can't be real.'"

Leach's eccentricities -- he is also fascinated by Geronimo, Daniel Boone and, more recently, Donald Trump, whom he's befriended -- constantly threaten to overshadow the minor miracle he's pulled off in west Texas. Now in his eighth season in Lubbock, the 46-year-old Leach has transformed a solid program into a perennial Top 25 program and fan's delight -- a swashbuckling aerial assault that haunts the dreams of defensive coordinators, and has powered the Red Raiders to seven straight bowls while turning the NCAA passing crown into the University's personal property. (Tech has won it four straight years, and currently leads the nation in passing yardage with -- this isn't a typo -- a 500-yards per game average).

Led by Harrel, who also leads the country in touchdown passes (31), passing yards (3151) and completions per game (36.86), the Red Raiders are 6-1 coming off last Saturday's 35-7 neutering of Texas A&M, a squad Leach seems to take special pleasure in beating. ("How come they get to pretend they are soldiers?" he asks, referring to the Aggies' buzz-cut corps of Cadets, in a superb New York Times Magazine profile from 2005. "The thing is, they aren't actually in the military.")

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