Mike Leach’s influence extends deeply among his CFP title game ‘disciples’

Mike Leach wasn’t one to get too romantic about his own legacy. His mind loved to wander, but especially so when he was being asked about himself or his impact on college football.

It’s likely he would not have known what to make of the scene Saturday at the College Football Playoff media day in downtown Los Angeles, where one of his many proteges was about to lead a team into the national championship game but acknowledged he’s been thinking about Leach “constantly.”

Leach died Dec. 12 after suffering a heart attack. He was 61.

“I wish he was here for the ride,” Texas Christian coach Sonny Dykes said. “He would be one of those guys that would have had an invitation to come with us and spend some time with us here in L.A. and come to the game. I’m sure he would have declined, but he certainly would have had an invitation.”

If tragedy hadn’t befallen Leach, a trip to Southern California to tag along for the end of the Horned Frogs magical journey would have been a tough sell. If he wasn’t already in Key West, his cherished offseason tradition, he would have been eyeing the dates.

Dykes coached under Leach at Kentucky in 1997 and at Texas Tech from 2000-06. He took his “Air Raid” schooling with him to head coaching stops at Louisiana Tech, California and Southern Methodist before jetting across town to TCU last offseason.

The Horned Frogs will honor Leach with a pirate flag decal on their helmets as they did during their upset victory over Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl. But for Dykes and offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, who played for Leach at Texas Tech during 2008-09, their devotion goes much deeper than a surface-level nod to their mentor.

Dykes was able to speak with Leach the week before Mississippi State’s Thanksgiving Day game against rival Mississippi, and the contents of that call still gave him comfort almost a month after Leach’s sudden death.

“Mike is not always going to show his emotions and can be pretty stoic,” Dykes said, “and we had some really heart-felt conversations preceding that game. And that gave me a lot of peace. I think we both said some things to each other that we wanted to say. Certainly, I feel that way.

“And it’s sad, just because, he never had an opportunity to play for a championship like this. And what he did for college football in general is really hard to measure. I think he would be proud to see one of his disciples have the kind of success we’ve had. As a matter of fact, I know he was because we talked about it.”

Sonny Dykes, left, and Mike Leach talk before a game between California and Washington State in November 2016.

(Young Kwak / Associated Press)

Dykes and Riley, the younger brother of USC head coach Lincoln Riley, attended Leach’s memorial service in Starkville, Miss., in December.

Riley seems like he could be next in line from the Leach tree to achieve stardom after winning the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach this year at the age of 33.

“He’s one of the biggest influences on my life,” Riley said Saturday. “I just think about him a lot. When you get to a stage like this, like how in the heck are we here, all those things, and you can’t help but think about him.

“Certainly, he’s here with us, has his hand on us, for sure.”

The younger Riley credits his time around Leach for, well, just about everything.

“Just totally the reason I wanted to coach,” he said. “I was there at Texas Tech when the run they were going on at that point in time was opening eyes to a cutting-edge offense, an offense that was taking college football by storm. Playing for a guy who was as unique and entertaining as he was, I was like, ‘Hell, this coaching thing looks pretty cool.’ ”

As Dykes noted, Leach never had the good fortune to make it to a national championship game or playoff semifinal. Similar to Dykes, Leach was never pegged to lead one of the sport’s serious blue-bloods, stubbornly swinging his sword in college towns such as Lubbock, Pullman, Wash., and Starkville.

Leach believed his “Air Raid” could get a team there. The pass-happy scheme was designed to level the playing field, taking talented defenders and getting them to stumble in space trying to keep up with this team’s relentless precision.

He almost got it done in 2008 with quarterback Graham Harrell and wide receiver Michael Crabtree, going 11-1, but the Red Raiders lost the Big 12 South divisional tiebreaker to one of those blue-bloods, Oklahoma.

TCU was just the kind of place that Leach knew the “Air Raid” could elevate to unforeseen heights.

“It’s kind of built on the same principles as the option in a lot of ways,” Dykes said. “Execution, simplicity, fundamentals, drills, all the things that make the option a big equalizer. That’s the principle in all of this.”

Leach left an impression on most everyone across college football at some point in the last 30 years, and that list includes Georgia head coach Kirby Smart.

When Leach was an assistant coach at Valdosta (Ga.) State in the early 1990s, the staff recruited Smart, who eventually went to Georgia. But Smart didn’t get to know Leach very well until the two were coaching in the Southeastern Conference the last few years.

“My experiences with Coach Leach were just different,” Smart said. “We played them the COVID year. Nobody warned me that before the game when you went and talked to him that he would talk. And he would talk. And he would talk. And I got worried because you’ve got time limits to do what you’ve go to do pregame. And I couldn’t break away from the conversation. We had run out of time. I’m like, ‘I gotta go.’ This guy’s still going.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart, left, and Mississippi State coach Mike Leach talk before a game on Nov. 12.

(Rogelio V. Solis / Associated Press)

“Then this year, I was a little more prepared. And I thought, OK, I’m going to have my time, allow me to get away. I found myself again, I couldn’t get away. He was talking about South Florida, a place where he goes, how he’s going to go down there after the season. I kept looking at the clock; I can’t get away from this guy.”

Similarly, this year’s CFP teams can’t get away from Leach’s aura.

Dykes was asked what Leach would say about TCU’s run to the brink of immortality.

“He would get a kick out of it,” Dykes said. “He would say, ‘You know, you’re still that same guy that was at Navarro Junior College making 288 bucks a month, so don’t forget it.”