The start of the season for this year’s Texas Tech football team couldn’t be any more different than last year’s historic start and the problems start with Mike Leach.
Following last year’s 11-win season, Leach’s public contract disputes took center stage and gained all of the national media attention.
Four games into the season, the Red Raiders already have matched last year’s loss total and this season has its fair share of off-field drama — with Leach in the middle of it all once again.
The off-field drama led to the suspension of a team captain and the ban of Twitter usage by Tech players.
Leach has been called one of the elite coaches in the country, especially by the local media, but the recent dramatic events with the Tech football program don’t resemble events that occur under an elite head coach.
I have never heard players publicly question Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Pete Carroll or Les Miles after losses, and if they did, those conflicts stayed in the locker room.
It is very strange that a well-respected, emotional leader like Brandon Carter — who was selected as a team captain before the season — would suddenly be suspended indefinitely.
Even stranger is the report that starting linebacker Marlon Williams, the most vocal supporter of Leach during his contract disputes last spring, voiced his frustration on his Twitter feed Sunday following the loss to Houston.
Williams asked on his Twitter account Sunday why he was in a team meeting while the head coach had not yet shown up.
At Monday’s press conference Leach spoke out against the networking site calling it “stupid,” and saying he didn’t want to sit with a bunch of “narcissists” that enjoy typing about themselves all the time.
It is beyond hypocritical that the same guy who can be seen on TV giving dating advice and soaking up all the attention that the pirate persona brings him — most recently by gracing the cover of Texas Monthly with a pirate patch on his eye, is calling college students egotistical for using one of the most popular networking tools in the country.
I didn’t hear Leach calling Williams a narcissist when he was holding up signs and leading chants in front of the athletic office during Leach’s contract dispute.
And when did Carter, a beloved team captain, become someone that couldn’t even be around the team that selected him as a captain?
Have the players changed, or has Leach himself changed?
The 29-28 loss at Houston on Saturday should come as a surprise to nobody, especially Leach’s decision to go for a touchdown on fourth down from the 1-yard line rather than kick a field goal that would have put the Red Raiders up eight points.
Leach has been making questionable decisions on fourth down since he arrived in Lubbock 10 years ago; the events on Saturday night were just a reflection of Leach’s unorthodox coaching style.
In Tech’s 2003 loss at North Carolina State, the Red Raiders were 2-for-7 on fourth down conversions, and in Tech’s 2006 loss at TCU, Leach went for it on fourth down three times, converting zero of those attempts.
Failing on fourth down in road games and losing games to less-talented teams is nothing new for Leach, but it has always been overshadowed by his ability to pull of an exciting upset at Jones AT&T Stadium.
Nothing has changed about Leach’s coaching style, but since the Tech program began getting national recognition it seems like the drama within the program has increased significantly.
In sports it is easy for fans to become prisoners of the moment.
During Leach’s contract disputes in the spring, a lot of people on campus and around Lubbock, gave false impressions that the Tech program would plummet if the beloved pirate ever left Lubbock. But so far this year, the beloved pirate has lost control.
Maybe Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers, a supporter of Tech athletics for decades, knew something that the rest of the Tech faithful didn’t.
14 comments
Roll Tide!!!