Leach out at Texas Tech?
Posted on Thu, Feb. 19, 2009
Leach feels like extortion victim under offer from Texas Tech
By DWAIN PRICE
dprice@star-telegram.com
Mike Leach has heard the talk about possibly being fired by Texas Tech because he refused to accept the school's three-year contract extension, but the Red Raiders' football coach doesn't believe it will come to that.
"I don't know if that's rumor or not, but think about how ridiculous it is," said Leach, who won three national college coach of the year awards for his efforts last season. "You've got two years left on your contract, you're offered a subpar deal based on the outside provisions, and then it's like, 'Take this deal.'
"And then you say, 'Nah, I'm going to go ahead and stick with my current deal.' And they say, 'All right, well, fine, I'll fire you.'"‚"
Leach is befuddled by the direction his contract negotiations have gone.
On Tuesday, Leach turned down a new contract starting this year for five years and $12.7 million because he felt the offer handcuffed him financially and offered very little security.
Tech's offer guaranteed just 12 percent of the contract should he be fired, and the school also wanted control of Leach's naming and personal property rights, and the revenue from his book, TV and radio deals. In addition, Tech wanted Leach to pay the university $300,000 for every year remaining on his contract if he were to buy it out and coach elsewhere.
Leach's current contract - which has two years remaining on it - is guaranteed for 40 percent.
Texas Tech's Board of Regents is scheduled to meet Friday afternoon in a special teleconference and one of the topics will be Leach's future with Tech.
Leach is slated to earn $2.65 million this year and $2.35 million in 2010. That includes an $800,000 bonus if he coaches through the 2009 season and a $200,000 bonus if he coaches through the 2010 campaign.
If Leach is fired this year Tech will have to pay him $1.6 million, and if the school fires him next year it would owe him $850,000. If Leach decides to walk away from his current contract, it would cost him $500,000.
Clearly, Tech's offer didn't sit well with Leach.
"What are they going to do after they [get] you to [sign] the sub-par deal?" Leach asked. "Then the next year they'll come at you and say, 'All right, we want to give you an extension again, and we're going to knock off another quarter of the thing, so take this one or we'll fire you.'
"And they'll just kind of extort me down to damn near nothing."
Tech athletic director Gerald Myers and chancellor Kent Hance did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.
The Red Raiders are coming off arguably their best season in school history. Leach guided Tech to an 11-2 record, a share of the Big 12 South title with Oklahoma and Texas, and a Cotton Bowl berth. Leach was also featured on a segment on 60 Minutes and has overseen a program that has a 79 percent graduation rate.
"The biggest thing is, [the contentious negotiations are surprising] especially when you consider where this program started when my coaches and I got here and where it is now," Leach said. "And especially when you consider what a great staff I have and a great group of players that we have here, and the potential for this year. That's surprising."
In the 75 years before Leach arrived at Tech, Red Raiders coaches posted a .549 winning percentage and were 5-17-1 in bowl games. In nine years under Leach, the Red Raiders have a .661 winning percentage and are 5-4 in bowls.
Tech could also have a school-record six players in April's NFL Draft: wide receiver Michael Crabtree, quarterback Graham Harrell, defensive end Brandon Williams, offensive guard Louis Vasquez, safety Darcel McBath and offensive tackle Rylan Reed.
For now, Leach is simply biding his time while he awaits the outcome of Friday's of regents teleconference.
"We're just going to watch more film and figure out a better way to play football," Leach said. "We all agreed to the two years I have left, and just because I turned down [the three-year extension], how in the hell can they just fire me?"
Looks like Texas Tech overdosed on their stupid pills.
Yeah, go ahead -- run off the guy who's won games at a higher rate than any Raiders coach since the Great Depression (the last one, I mean). Makes perfect sense. Goddamned morons.
I was on the Leach bandwagon as a replacement for Weis
He's one of the few guys I thought would be a guaranteed upgrade for us at the end of last season (and someone who was also "gettable"). I thought he was a good fit on the academic side of things at ND, too -- he wouldn't have been in tension with the standards like other guys might be.
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?"
Not to mention ...
by Slainte Joe , Raleigh, Thursday, February 19, 2009, 11:07 (6305 days ago) @ Jay
the man is a swashbuckling pirate!
Seriously. We would have a freakin' pirate coach! How the hell did we pass on that?
Just imagine the bookstore paraphernalia.
by domer.mq 
, Thursday, February 19, 2009, 11:53 (6305 days ago) @ Slainte Joe
- No text -
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Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.