Cleaning out the inbox

The inbox cleaning begins with a great article from the Athletic on the original 2000 coaching staff with the always interesting Mike Leach at Texas Tech.
That squad between the players and the coaching staff includes eight coaches that would be head coaches, eight more that would be coordinators at the D-I level and seven besides that would become coaches at various smaller levels.
It is really a fascinating look into the world of Leach at Tech and how his influence on those coaches affects the college football world 19 years later.

ESPN writes of the story of the network's first live event and why their broadcast library had no such record of the broadcast.
The slow-pitch softball game between the Kentucky Bourbons and the Milwaukee Schlitz was the first game telecast from ESPN in September of 1979 and the tape from that game had been missing for years.
The article has a companion piece from the E 60 program, which I'm sure you can find with a short Google search.

Back to the Athletic with the story of the first game between Boise State and Marshall from 1994.
That game was the 1-AA national semi-final with the winner playing for the national championship and Marshall was the more established of the two, making trips to the previous three title games, winning one of the three games, all against Youngstown State.
Youngstown was waiting for the winner of this one as well and while being more of a Boise State story, there is plenty of 1-AA history and Marshall as well.
Hard to believe twenty-five years later that Boise State is the national brand and the football power of the Mountain West, while Marshall is probably the choice for the traditional kingpin of Conference USA, which didn't even exist in 1994!

Politico writes of the "culture of fear and self-dealing" at Liberty University in Lynchburg Va.
Liberty is the university that seems to run and own the area and is now led by Jerry Falwell, Jr, who you may have heard his name in the news of late.
The article covers many problems with the school and the Falwell family and what I was surprised about was the sources that were spoken to that seemed to have a real love for the university and even the family, but feel that something needed to be done in order to 'save' it.
I found that quite interesting and having been to Lynchburg, the power that the Falwell's possess, I can completely understand the sources reluctance to go against the family.

Finally, Ramon Malpica invited me to guest on his new venture and I was happy to do so.
Ramon asked me questions about myself, favorite things, opinions on gun laws, the USFL and at the end of course-Boxing.
Please give it a listen and rate and subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice.

Maryland fumbles the football

The Maryland Terrapin athletic program fumbled away a huge chance to make an impact on the national scene with the hiring of Connecticut's Randy Edsall over former Texas Tech boss Mike Leach.

I don't have anything against Randy Edsall, he did a solid job in moving the Connecticut program from 1-AA to a BCS bowl team (Of course, he did it with an 8-4 team in the Big East, the weakest conference in the BCS and one that should be booted from the monopoly) and certainly makes sense to be a mentioned candidate for the Maryland job.

However, Mike Leach battled in the toughest state to recruit in the country (Texas) kept Texas Tech in bowl consistently and in the toughest division of any conference in the country (the now defunct Big 12 South) had the most exciting offense in the country.

Detractors of Leach argue that he never won a conference title, but Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma State, and Texas A & M are quite a cut above the likes of Rutgers, Syracuse, and Louisville.
Anyone that looks at recruiting at Tech knows the issues that coaches battle there and Mike Leach succeeded there beyond anyone's hopes.
This comes from someone that was not always a Mike Leach fan and was questioning his hire in replacing the retiring Spike Dykes.
Maryland had a chance to finally hire a reasonably young and innovative coach with a track record and finally had an opportunity to become the boss of the ACC, which lives one step above the Big East of BCS conferences.

Football would become a hot ticket again in College Park for the first time in years.
Hell, I was even planning on getting to a game or two with the hiring of Leach.
All looked to be going in the direction of Mike Leach and suddenly, one day after Connecticut's expected BCS drilling against Oklahoma, Randy Edsell is in Maryland.

Edsell seems like an ok coach and is certainly a safe hire, but can Maryland and its football budget that ranks behind every ACC state school except N.C. State afford a safe hire?
Maryland needs the home run, not the infield single.

Edsell seems much like Ralph Friedgen-a good coach, a less than exciting x and o guy, and an average recruiter.
When you consider the clumsy manner that Maryland chopped Friedgen at the block and the PR hit that the school took from the firing, was it worth all of that and the upset alumni that loved Ralph Friedgen-was Randy Edsall worth all that and is he even an upgrade?
Our answer is no and no and that isn't a shot at Edsall, who could keep Maryland football on the current track that sees bowl bids to the ACC's sixth and seventh team.

Maryland clearly got cold feet from the media that were hitting them for the release of the popular Friedgen and figured that hiring the controversial Leach would lead to more hammers from ESPN among many despite the positives that the program would receive from the paying customers and boosters, someone got jumpy and Edsall was the best they could get.
No guts No glory-typical Maryland......

Mike Leach

I begin the long process of using the next three days to catch back up from being down sick.
I hated being away with all of the things around that I wanted to write about, but I had to use my energy to be able to go to work, as much as I would have rather been writing...

I have been unsure of what to think of this Mike Leach firing at Texas Tech.
I have seen and heard so much information that seems to contradict both sides that one could see their head spinning, but I do know this-Texas Tech has proven one thing-they truly are not committed to being a Big 12 power.

Oh, I believe that Tech wants to win and make bowl games as that makes the school money, but the price of dealing with a Mike Leach isn't worth the difference in going to a larger bowl when they can save and go to the smaller bowl games.
After all, the Raider fan is loyal and they will travel to whatever game that Tech plays in, no matter how minor.

I am a CNA but make no claims on how to properly deal with concussions from a medical standpoint, and other than suffering two, I would not say that I know anything more than how it affected me.

I do know that I was tired, wanted a quiet, dark place, and felt generally out of sorts, so there it seems that Leach could have been on the right track.

But he still was either making an amateur diagnosis or punishing Adam James and in either case, seems to have been making a mistake.
Now whether the error was a mistake or a deliberate punishment seems to be the biggest question.

I suppose it depends on whom you believe Mike Leach or Craig James, but I also feel that James used his position at ESPN to tip the scales of public opinion in favor of his son.
Please also excuse me for scoffing as a man that was paid (one of many to be fair) during his college career to the point of his school being the only school ever to receive the "death penalty" being put up as a bastion of credibility.
Put ESPN's behavior in the matter aside for another column because they showed all the journalistic credentials of the National Midnight Star in this entire affair.

The truth likely is in there somewhere in the middle.
Did Mike Leach get tired of a lazy, soft player that had a father bugging him all the time? 

Yep.

Would Mike Leach have minded a bit if Adam James left his program? 

Likely not.

Is it possible that Leach was trying to hassle James more than he would another player to get him to move on?
Possibly.

Did he take things to an extreme beyond what is reasonable to expect?
Maybe, but the facts are ambiguous and we will likely never know the complete and entire truth.

In case, fans of Red Raider football as I have been for over 30 years now are realizing that the days of Texas Tech as a legitimate Big 12 contender are likely finished.
Considering the location of Tech and the issues that the Red Raiders have to face in recruiting the state against both in and out-of-state powerhouses, Texas Tech appears to be on the long-term slide, although it may take a year or two to see those results.

As far as the new coach goes, I usually am against the hiring of an assistant that has never been a head coach for a BCS job like Texas Tech, but after seeing defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill in the Alamo Bowl win over Michigan State, I would have fewer concerns than usual with a McNeill hiring.

Not because of anything that he did in the game, because he took gambles that he would have likely never taken in a game that wasn't an audition, but because he seemed like a genuinely nice and caring human being in his pre and post-game interviews with Heather Cox (Points to ESPN for using our favorite sideline reporter more during bowl week this year).

McNeill looks to me to be the type of coach that cares about his players as people and I came away impressed with him on my first time seeing him speak.

Does that mean that I think he will be successful? The odds are against him, but I would not be against giving him his shot.


For more insight on the whole Raider situation, click here to visit Double T Nation for all the information that you could want on the new coach at TT.

Photo Credits
Leach:Sam Greenwood-Getty Images
McNeill:RedRaiders.com