Graham Harrell, who was must see tv with Crabtree in 2008, is the offensive coordinator of the 2022 West Virginia mountaineers. Do with that information what you will.
i would say regularly winning 8+ games at places like tech, wazzu and miss st is a perennial winner all things considered
He was never a guy that could compete for National Titles on a regular basis. And one could make the claim that a lot of it had to do with his one-sided approach to the game.
If competing for national titles on a regular basis is the standard for a good coach then there are like 5 good coaches total
Also that he exclusively worked at historically trash programs with limited budgets stuck in shithole cities.
To be fair, ND fans know a lot about not being able to compete for national titles on a regular basis
I think he set the table for a lot of innovation that was to come on offense but his willingness to care about defense, run game, recruiting, or fundraising in any significant capacity is what made him the dev version of what we’re now seeing with actual program runners who learned from him (Riley, Dykes, etc.).
In 21 seasons as a Head Coach, he won 10+ games only twice. Did he coach at bottom feeding P5 programs? Yes. Because better schools wouldn’t offer him a job, which is an indictment on his ability as a head coach. I wouldn’t call him a “damn good” coach. I’d say he was a decent coach with visionary Xs and Os acumen. We’re debating verbiage at that point though.
Bad. Take. Go and look at his records at the schools he coached at then look at their historical records. You're so wildly wrong it's pretty impressive.
TT has 6 10 win season in their history. Before Leach won 11 in 2008, last 10 win season was 1976. They've won 9+ only 13 times... Leach has 5 of those seasons
I'm too lazy to look it up but I'm guessing the delta between Leach's winning percentage vs. the program's historical win percentage is only behind Snyder's for best of all time.
Leach went 84-43 at Tech (66.1%) and their lifetime program record is .552 and that includes his teams. EDIT: Take Leach away and Tech's won 53.93% of their games.
Dan Mullen went 69-46 (60%) at Mississippi State and their lifetime program record is .494 and that includes his teams. If Dan up and croaked today would people remember him as a great coach?
Leach went 55-47 at WSU (53.92%) and WSU is a 49.42% winning % without him. Not as good as Tech but WSU has only gone to 18 bowl games in program history and Leach was responsible for 5 of them and is right at the same winning % as Dennis Erickson in that job for 2 seasons in the 80s. One of the winningest coaches in WSU history. Owns the only 11 win WSU team in its history and there were only 5 other 10 win seasons in program history.
I'm not really sure how to judge guys who did ok at a smaller school but never got a big time job. Seems like a red flag
Dan didn't basically invent an entire offensive scheme that went on to become widely popular at all levels. He also doesn't talk like a pirate.
Pretty much the same way as he's being treated ITT. Weirdo asshole who's probably not a great guy with an oddity offense that made bad teams in bad towns win more than they have historically.
But it's often because it's an oddity offense that most teams don't practice/play against that often. I'm just not sure that qualifies
Hal Mumme invented that offense, not Mike Leach. And your last point is exactly why I think Leach will likely be remembered as a better coach than he probably was (and I’m not saying he was a shitty coach either fwiw.) He was a quirky guy who didn’t follow standard coaching norms and developed a cult of personality. It was a change from typical coach speak that we all hate so much and I do think that was refreshing.
And he had a lower win % than Leach (.516). Went to the same number of bowl games as Leach and both win Pac coach of the year twice.
We’ll obviously never know, but I feel pretty certain that Leach would’ve flamed out at a major pressure cooker program like Dan did. Honestly, it should be a credit to him that he likely knew that and picked his jobs based on areas outside of the typical CFB footprint.
If you're winning titles then who gives a fuck what they say. Leach didn't do that so you have to measure other things
Terry Hoeppner was Indiana's active coach after 2006, but was going to take medical leave for 2007 however he died prior to the 2007 season.
He ran that offense because he coached at places with a historical talent gap. Running an offense or defense that equalizes the game against better competition is a sign of good coaching imo
They worked on it together at Iowa Wesleyan, crediting key concepts to BYU's Coach Edwards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_offense But if we're down to timelines and who gave who credit, I think the point stands -- Leach is/was hugely influential on college football and isn't comparable to frigging Dan Mullen.
I think you’re exactly right and I think that’s part of why he never did it as well. Not to mention his personality would never fly with the kind of meddlesome boosters at a top-notch program that make it a snake pit.