He would have been better than anything we would have hired in the past 20 years.
We would have grown tired of him and he, too, would have had some laughable Ls that would infuriate us, but we would have broken passing records, had a huge tree of alumni in the NFL and throughout coaching circles, and overall, a worthwhile experiment that would put us in a better place today than we were yesterday. Probably would have a few conference championships, too.
You don't have to like him, but he would have done a few things here. He's been too successful and too historically significant for his influence to the modern game to dismiss him. We would have been ahead of the curve on the modern offense...instead, we still think pro style is whatever the fvck we've been doing.
Have we missed the boat? Probably. Has Mike Leach missed his shot at a major program? Probably. Would he have been a worthwhile experiment 12 years ago? You can't convince me he wouldn't have been.
He's a phenomenal offensive mind in terms of revolutionizing the passing game. As a Head Coach, he's severely overrated by Miami fans but not by the rest of College Football.
He's only had TWO 10+ win seasons in his entire career, one at Wast St & one at TTech, that's it after 18-19 years as a HC, never won a conference title & 7-7 in Bowl games.
Would he have been better than Shannon, Folden or Diaz, sure, but that's not a very difficult thing to do, we're talking about 3 absolute Corches, that's not a major accomplishment.
It's not about liking or disliking Leach, it's about people not seeming to understand why he's NEVER been hired to be a HC at a major program & why he will never be much more than Passing Offense guru, because being a great P5 championship contending HC is about more than just passing the ball 60 times a game, his refusal to run the ball & complete ignoring of building a Defense or putting any effort into recruiting is exactly why major programs never seriously considered him & have never wanted him.
His students like Lincoln Riley, Heupel & the many others all realized that his style of extremist Pass only Air Raid doesn't work & is not sustainable. That's why they've been significantly more successful in a much shorter time because they took the great passing concepts from the AR & combined it with the Spread rushing attack & got the best of both worlds.
All those great coaches that came under the Leach & not one of them run the Air Raid the same way he does, why do you think that is? Because those guys all know that his style doesn't work if you're trying to do more than win 8 games a year.
Just look at what happens every time they play Washington & Cal, that Pass only Air Raid gets exposed & they get shellacked, not to mention the games he's lost to multiple FCS schools.
What would've happened if he were here? We would lead the nation in passing attempts, beat the GTechs of the world & lost to any team with a viable Defense while finishing with 7/8 wins a year & he would've gave some quirky bizarre post game press conferences after getting his sh*t pushed in by a Pitt or UVA team we were suppose to beat.
We wouldn't have won the ACC with Leach, that's a fact. Again is he better than Shannon, Folden & Diaz? Sure no question, is he this elite HC that deserves to be mentioned every single year on here as if he's Urban Meyer or something, no he doesn't... Not even close.
