- Sportswriter Parrish Alford says the Hall should do the right thing by both coaches.
The College Football Hall of Fame is a wonderful place, a must-see for all fans, but specifically those in the Southeast for whom Atlanta is easily accessible.
Aside from when new Hall of Fame classes are announced in January, the Hall doesn’t generate much news, but June has been different.
Two coaches who are just under the 60% winning percentage threshold for Hall of Fame induction – Mike Leach and Les Miles – are attempting to get in in different ways.
There is a posthumous murmur of support for Leach, whose career winning percentage is a tantalizingly close 59.6.
Meanwhile, Miles reached the threshold until LSU voluntarily gave up some wins from his time there in a peace offering to the NCAA. Now Miles is suing LSU, the NCAA and the Hall of Fame itself.
LSU’s decision to subtract 37 of Miles’ wins from 2012-15 leaves him with a career winning percentage of 59.7. The vacated wins are related to an NCAA finding that former LSU offensive lineman Vadal Alexander received illegal benefits before the benefits went cold, according to The KeynoteUSA.
Both types have legitimate complaints.
I wonder if Leach were alive, if he would actually be complaining. I suppose not. He didn’t care what people thought of him at any other point in his career. Why would he care about death?
There was one occasion in Mayberry when Barney Fife found himself caught in a honey trap. The result was a hearing to determine Andy’s fitness to remain sheriff, and to his surprise, Barney was called as a witness for the prosecution. At the end of his emotional testimony, Barney, though lacking in application, demonstrated a keen understanding of a lesson the sheriff had long been trying to teach him.
“You asked me if Andy runs an uptight ship, Mr. Milton. Well, no, he doesn’t. But that’s because of something he’s been trying to teach me since I started working for him. And when you are a man of law and you deal with people, you do much better if you are not guided so much by the rules, but by your heart.”
The Hall’s honor court, which has the final say on who gets inducted, needs to make an exception in Leach’s case.
Leach’s winning percentage of 59.6 would be much higher if he had been a career climber. Instead, Leach had a way of putting together nine-win seasons in places where that number, perhaps unimpressive for the sport’s biggest brands, was quite rare.
Further evidence of Leach’s work at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State is Miles’ record in two seasons at Kansas at the end of his career. In 2019 and 2020, the Jayhawks were a combined 3-18 and 1-16 in the Big 12 Conference.
Yes, 2020 was the year of COVID, but it was difficult in every aspect. Not every coach had a 0-9 record.
Before accepting the LSU job, Miles, who won the national championship with LSU in 2007, coached at Oklahoma State for four seasons, winning nine games once.
This isn’t about Mike Leach versus Les Miles. It’s about the Hall of Fame doing right by both coaches.
Miles wouldn’t be having this fight if 37 wins hadn’t been vacated. LSU wouldn’t have offered to vacate wins if there hadn’t been plenty of examples of the NCAA enjoying one of its tools. It is pure madness of punishment. You can note that certain victories were achieved while certain rules were discovered to have been broken, but you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Games were played.
If the goal of punishment by any authority is reconciliation, the act of nullifying victories simply compounds when you consider financial penalties, scholarship cuts, postseason probation and other available weapons.
Leach was an offensive innovator that many other coaches copied. His impact on the game will be felt for years. These are the practical reasons for including Leach.
Southern Cal coach Lincoln Riley, one of those Leach disciples, summed it up when he said, “It’s hard to imagine the College Football Hall of Fame without him.”
Expand on that a bit. Think about college football without Mike Leach.
When Leach died, college football lost whimsy, but it also lost a powerful thinker.
He will be best remembered for his love of pirates, his book “Swing Your Sword,” his entertaining rants with sideline reporters after games or with local media on Monday afternoons, his jokes, his hot takes that became viral. On twitter.
Whether it was the best Halloween candy, wedding advice, or taking sideline seats because his receivers didn’t deserve to sit, Mike Leach could take over social media.
Sadly, he will be less remembered for his thoughtful stances on issues facing college football.
When I spoke to him at the SEC business meetings in Destin in 2022, Leach opposed the position of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Mississippi State President Mark Keenum, and others who sought (and still seek) federal oversight of NIL.
Leach’s position was that college football could solve its own problems.
He did not defend direct payments to players, but payments linked to education. They could go without payouts but allow schools to pay each player a $150,000 bonus, perhaps even more, if they graduated from the school they signed with.
Market value would see to it that five-star quarterbacks would still be on their own NIL deals, but Leach’s plan could possibly alleviate this fascination with the transfer portal and make players more willing to navigate adverse conditions in one place. Maybe coming out on the other side of tough stretches could help them navigate life.
Mike Leach gave college football a Hall of Fame idea. The Hall can give him an exception.
Keynote USA
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