Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

8/30/2010 at 3:11pm

Before he got away to return to his new home in Key West, former Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach outlined his ongoing battle with his former employer for the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday. Leach has sued the school for wrongful termination, and he told a packed house at the Embassy Suites in west Little Rock that depositions taken and memos uncovered by his legal representatives favor his side.

"We want it to go to trial as soon as possible and they [Texas Tech] want to delay it as long as they can," said Leach, contending that he has not been paid for coaching the Red Raiders in the 2009 season and that the university fired him one day before it was to owe Leach $2.4 million based on a new contract Texas Tech and Leach signed after the 2008 season.

"In my time as head coach at Texas Tech we had three chancellors and five presidents. I got along with two chancellors and four presidents," he said, the room reacting with laughter, "which I think is a remarkably good batting average."

Leach, who never had a losing season in Lubbock and won 6 of 10 bowl games as the Red Raiders' head coach, was fired by Texas Tech in late December after reports surfaced of alleged mistreatment of injured player Adam James, son of TV analyst and former NFL player Craig James. Adam James suffered a concussion and alleged he was locked in a small room to encourage him to return to practicing, and Craig James helped make the story go national.

"You've got Craig James, who was dissatisfied with his son's playing time," Leach said. "He was twisting coaches' arms, and when that didn't work he went higher up ... [Craig James] received preferential treatment in college and expected the same for his son."

Leach added, "The whole thing is absurd on a number of levels."

He contends that Texas Tech officials were "bitter" about the most recent contract negotiations with Leach after he had coached Tech to 11 wins, a high national ranking and a Cotton Bowl appearance in 2008. "They were never going to fulfill their obligation," he said. The James situation gave Tech an out to end its relationship with Leach.

Tech hired former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, the Camden area native who also coached at Ole Miss. Auburn and Tuberville parted ways after the 2008 season, just four years after Tuberville had coached the Tigers to a 13-0 season.

In his one season off from coaching, Tuberville spent the fall as one of ESPN's college football analysts and had a some speaking engagements, including kicking off last year's Little Rock Touchdown Club lineup. Coincidentally, that honor went to Leach on Monday.

Meanwhile, Leach has gotten his foot through the TV door, landing a job with CBS College Sports, where he'll provide analysis and work mostly Conference-USA games with Roger Twibell on one of CBS's affiliates.

He didn't say it, but he'd probably wish his suit with Texas Tech was resolved quickly so there is nothing to stand in the way of a job offer after the 2010 season. A number of hot-seat positions already are being discussed around the college football landscape.

Nobody figured Texas Tech for a change last year either. Leach was hardly on any visible hot seat, though no one outside of the Tech inner sanctum probably realized how deep the rancor ran with the current administration when Leach parlayed a big season into a rich deal.

Leach rejuvenated the Texas Tech football program that had languished after the collapse of the Southwest Conference and the absorption of Tech, Texas, Baylor and Texas A&M into the Big Eight, forming the Big 12. Leach, who was at Kentucky with mentor Hal Mumme for a season and then coordinated Oklahoma's offense for a year under Bob Stoops (setting up OU's run in 2000 for the national championship), took over at Tech in 2000 and made quick gains with a wide-open passing attack.

Leach said he based his philosophy off what he learned as an assistant at Brigham Young University, which was a pass-happy offense, and what he saw out of Oklahoma in its heyday, with its running attack out of the wishbone. In both cases, he said Monday, they were offenses that got the football in the hands of every skill player. At BYU, he was part of teams that featured such future NFL quarterbacks Mark Wilson, Jim McMahon and Steve Young. He also noticed that only teams who gave BYU fits were the likes of Air Force with its flexbone, where "everybody touched the ball" also.

He said the run-oriented wishbone of Oklahoma, when Arkansas native Barry Switzer was running things there, "was the ultimate scheme of everybody touching the ball ... everybody said they had the best players, but they didn't have better players than Texas ... they didn't throw the ball much but everybody was touching the ball."

And that, in Leach's eyes, he said, is what makes up offensive balance. When only three players are handling the offense, even if the run and pass yardage totals are equal, that is not balance.

Leach and Switzer have become good friends, Leach said Monday. Switzer, the former Razorback player and assistant coach, was behind the scenes pushing for Arkansas to look at Leach in December 2007 when the Hogs' head coaching position opened and eventually went to Bobby Petrino.

Leach said the Heisman Trophy race now comes down to three factors: popularity, playing for a potential national championship team, and what that player means to his team. If there were a fourth factor to consider, Leach said, and the Heisman was awarded to to player who could physically whip the other candidates, he's certain Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett  -- all 6-foot-6 and 240-plus pounds of him -- would win it. "They talk about having a playoff system. Have a playoff for the Heisman and I guarantee Ryan Mallett can whip every one of them," Leach said.

Leach has long said that War Memorial Stadium back on a night in late September 1998 was the loudest stadium he had ever experienced, as he was calling offensive plays for Tim Couch and the Kentucky Wildcats. Arkansas won the thriller, 27-20, overcoming a 20-7 Kentucky lead. Leach credited an "echo" factor that he and the Wildcats took note of during a walk-through that was like no other stadium. "I liked the stadium, one, for its oval shape, and it was all concrete so it was like having a game in your neighbor's basement. And third, the locker rooms were awful." Plus lockerrooms don't do much to help a home team's advantage, he said.

David Bazzel, the club's president, quickly chimed in of War Memorial's lockerroom conditions, "They've redone them since then."

Maybe Leach will follow last year's opening speaker's lead and quickly return to coaching to experience those lockers and War Memorial Stadium again. SEC teams South Carolina and LSU might be looking for new coaches after this season, if the hot-seat speculation means anything. Or maybe an opening will arise where no one expects, where a coach seems to have things rolling -- like Leach had at Texas Tech.

Tagged: Mike Leach, Little Rock Touchdown Club, David Bazzel