Nine days that changed Tucson’s football future:
Nov. 21, 2011: Arizona hires Rich Rodriguez.
Nov. 30, 2011: Washington State hires Mike Leach.
Given seven years of perspective, why did RichRod fail and Leach prevail?
One critical variable Arizona missed in the process of hiring RichRod was that his unacceptable 15-22 record at Michigan was far worse than met the eye. Included in those 15 victories was an 8-0 record against Bowling Green, Toledo, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Delaware State, UConn, UMass and Miami of Ohio.
RichRod was very good against the Mid-American Conference, but a gruesome 7-22 elsewhere.
“RichRod set Michigan football back eight or 10 years,” ESPN “College GameDay” analyst Desmond Howard said on the air three weeks ago.
Leach not only wanted the Arizona job, he traveled to Tucson on Nov. 2, 2011 under the guise of promoting his new book — “Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life” — and to help a friend market the Casino Del Sol College All-Star Game.
Leach told the Star he wanted to talk to Arizona about its coaching vacancy.
“This is a great place where a lot of people want to be,” he told the Star’s Ryan Finley.
Former Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne talked to Leach, but has never said publicly if it was a full-flown interview or just a chat among acquaintances.
There is one asterisk that needs to be remembered: Some in college football, 2011, considered Leach to be toxic. He was only two years removed from allegedly mistreating a Texas Tech player who had a concussion, a situation that Leach has consistently referred to as “a fraud.”
It’s easy for me, seven years later, to say that Leach was a far superior coaching prospect than RichRod. But it’s also painfully obvious.
Leach’s 10 seasons at remote and recruiting-challenged Texas Tech were so successful that had he never coached another game, he would likely have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
One of the requirements of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame is that a coach have a career winning percentage of 60 percent.
That’s tough even for coaches at a place like UCLA. For 20 years, Terry Donahue was blessed with a remarkable recruiting environment and won 66 percent of his games. That ties Leach’s winning percentage at Texas Tech.
Yet somehow, playing in the same Big 12 division as Texas and Oklahoma, Leach’s Red Raiders went 84-43. Leach’s teams were ranked as high as No. 2 in the AP poll. Texas Tech went to 10 consecutive bowl games.
He never required a rebuilding pause. He just won.
Now Leach is doing the same thing at the Pac-12’s version of Texas Tech.
His team is ranked No. 8 nationally. The Cougars lead the Pac-12 in total offense. What you might not know (or believe) is that WSU is ranked second in total defense. All of this while replacing quarterback Luke Falk, the school’s career passing yards leader, and overcoming the offseason suicide of presumptive starting quarterback Tyler Hilinski.
More? The Cougars lost six assistant coaches in the offseason, as Ohio State, UCLA (twice) and Oregon raided Leach’s staff, offering significant pay increases. Leach filled in with coaches from Bowling Green, Utah State, North Texas, Minnesota, Nevada and Western Kentucky.
And here they are, 9-1 and the most feared team in Pac-12 football.
MIke Leach and his WSU team acknowledges the Cougars’ marching band following Saturday’s win. Washington State remains the Pac-12’s best hope for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Leach took over a WSU program that had gone 4-32 in four dreadful conference seasons. It took him three years dig out from under the rubble, but since then the Cougars are 35-14.
That’s more victories in a four-year period than at any time in Arizona history.
In my book, Leach has done more with less in modern college football than any coach except Kansas State’s Bill Snyder, who has won 65 percent of his games there.
Leach isn’t for everyone. He can be unpleasant and obstinate. He spends much of the off-season at his home in Key West, Florida, and, like RichRod, who attempted to leave Tucson for a vacancy at South Carolina, Leach appears to be a temp employee. He was involved in Tennessee’s coaching search a few months ago.
Rich Rodriguez, left, and Mike Leach, right, were hired within nine days of each other in November 2011. The coaches both came with baggage from their previous stops, but Leach’s ability to win has allowed him to outlast Rodriguez.
When TV cameras are rolling, Leach plays up his eccentricities, his love for pirates and other off-the-beaten-football-path topics. During a TV interview Saturday at Colorado, Leach allowed WSU’s beloved, come-from-nowhere quarterback Gardner Minshew to paste a phony mustache on his face. ESPN must’ve replayed it a dozen times.
It’s no more than even-money Leach will return for another year at WSU, and do you blame him? He’s 57. With his resume, it’d be justice if, for his last act, Leach got a crack at one of those football-mad precincts in the SEC or Big Ten.
As Arizona prepares for its Saturday night game against the Pullman Pirates, remember this: In the last six recruiting classes, Washington State has signed just five four-star recruits, according to Rivals.com’s rankings. Stanford signed 42.
And somehow WSU has defeated Stanford three years in a row.
RichRod or Leach? Now it seems like a trick question.
