Mike Leach didn’t do transient cellphone calls. Bob Stoops discovered this years in the past.
When Leach known as, inevitably late at evening, Stoops knew what awaited on the opposite finish of that line: Answer the cellphone and be entertained into the wee hours with dialog about who is aware of what.
Answer that cellphone, and Leach would discuss … and discuss some extra – about something.
“Buddies that know him and love him, he’ll call you at midnight, and sometimes you answer, you don’t get off the phone until 1:30 in the morning,” Stoops, the previous longtime Oklahoma coach, advised me Monday, “and then, sometimes, if you’re too tired, you don’t answer, because you know it’s going to be 1:30 or 2. It’s going to be an hour and a half conversation.”
And the dialog would possibly stray into any route, when speaking to this man of many pursuits.
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Stoops recollects stopping by Leach’s workplace after Stoops had employed Leach to be Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator forward of the 1999 season.
A photograph of Geronimo hung in Leach’s workplace, and Stoops tumbled into a chat with Leach concerning the Apache chief and drugs man. An hour later, and Leach was nonetheless discussing Geronimo.
“Obsessed with Geronimo,” Stoops stated of Leach.
Unique is the phrase Stoops saved returning to as he shared a few Leach tales with me on Monday, whereas his buddy remained hospitalized. Leach, Mississippi State’s third-year coach, died Monday evening following problems from a heart condition, MSU introduced. He was 61.
Leach coached from Pori, Finland, to Pullman, Washington, amid a fascinating profession.
Stoops employed Leach to his inaugural Sooners employees as a result of he knew firsthand how a lot of a ache it was to defend a Leach offense.
Stoops had been Florida’s defensive coordinator whereas Leach coordinated Kentucky’s offense below Hal Mumme.
Stoops knew Mumme wouldn’t go away an SEC teaching place to run Oklahoma’s offense, so he inquired about Leach, Mumme’s protégé.
Could Leach run the offense on his personal, for Stoops at Oklahoma?
“Absolutely,” Mumme advised Stoops.
Leach was at OU for simply one season – he left to grow to be Texas Tech’s coach – however his impression was profound in serving to Stoops jump-start a program that had been a snoozing large.
Not solely did Leach convey Mumme’s Air Raid offense to OU, he helped safe quarterback expertise that will assist the Sooners for years. In that lone offseason with Leach on employees, Oklahoma signed Josh Heupel as a junior school switch, inked Jason White out of highschool and added Nate Hybl as a switch from Georgia.
Leach – and his offense – had been instrumental within the recruiting haul.
“He was the guy. That’s why they came with us,” Stoops stated of OU’s quarterback class that yr.
Heupel grew to become a Heisman Trophy runner-up in 2000, and the Sooners received the nationwide championship that season. Hybl grew to become a Rose Bowl MVP. White would win the Heisman in 2003.
Heupel, particularly, was Leach’s prized recruit, out of Snow College in Utah.
“Josh was not highly recruited whatsoever, at all, but Mike loved him,” Stoops recalled. “He said, ‘This is our guy,’ and I trusted Mike. I liked watching Josh on tape, and I said, ‘I’m going to trust you. If that’s what you want, we’re going to do it.’”
Heupel connected with Leach while they watched game film seated on Leach’s office floor in OU’s new football complex.
“We didn’t have furniture yet, because we were just moving into the Switzer Center,” Leach told the USA TODAY Network’s Vols Wire in 2021. “We sat on the floor watching film after film – that was when it was VHS still – and talked offense.”
After Leach left OU, he made a profession out of successful at locations the place wins do not come simply – Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. His pass-happy offense traveled with him. Sixteen successful seasons in 21 years as a coach, together with an 8-4 mark this season.
Leach’s profitable 10-year tenure at Texas Tech created a ripple impact all through highschool offenses in Texas.
Oklahoma, then Texas Tech, had offered Leach a larger platform to showcase the Air Raid. It caught on.
“You look around the state of Texas, about every high school, for the most part, probably 80% of them, had some forms of his offense,” Stoops stated. “He had a huge influence from his time at Tech and with us.”
Leach’s teaching tree is far-reaching, too. Just take a look at this yr’s Heisman Trophy balloting.
Three of the highest 5 vote-getters for the Heisman (winner Caleb Williams, Southern Cal; second-place Max Duggan, TCU; and fifth-place Hendon Hooker, Tennessee) play for coaches who both performed for Leach or coached below him.
USC’s Lincoln Riley and TCU’s Sonny Dykes coached for Leach at Texas Tech. Heupel is in his second season teaching Tennessee.
But to label Leach as a grasp of offense is to pigeonhole a coach of broad pursuits.
The yr Leach labored on Stoops’ employees, Oklahoma’s coaches generally would collect at Mark Mangino’s condo after work. Coaches would faucet out because the hours wore on, whereas Leach solid forward, ever the evening owl, ever curious.
“Mangino can be going to mattress, and Mike can be sitting on the top of the mattress, nonetheless watching ‘Howard Stern,'” Stoops said.
“He is the best,” Stoops added. “… He is unique. There’s no one like him, I promise you.”
Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected] and comply with him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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