{"id":672341,"date":"2026-05-29T15:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/672341\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T15:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:06:10","slug":"mike-leach-makes-college-football-hall-of-fame-ballot-four-years-after-his-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/672341\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Leach makes College Football Hall of Fame ballot four years after his death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Leach<\/a> is one step closer to joining the College Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Leach, who passed away in 2022, is officially on the ballot among coaches under consideration for induction into the Hall of Fame\u2019s Class of 2027, sources told On3.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Monday, the National Football Foundation (NFF) will release the ballot to be voted on for induction into the Hall of Fame\u2019s Class of 2027, a source said. The Hall of Fame inductees won\u2019t be announced until January 2027 with the ceremony to honor the Class of 2027 in December from Las Vegas. <\/p>\n

Last May, the NFF lowered the eligibility criteria for coaches to get into the Hall from a winning percentage of 60% to 59.5%, opening the door for Leach, who was at 59.6% at Texas Tech<\/a>, Washington State<\/a> and Mississippi State<\/a>. Leach was nominated for the Class of 2027, as required for consideration, by Mississippi State, a source said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is incredibly deserving,\u201d said Auburn<\/a> athletic director John Cohen, who hired Leach at Mississippi State in 2020. \u201cHe was a college football pioneer. He had a lot of characteristics not typical of anyone, such as his creativity and sense of humor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Leach\u2019s uniqueness, Cohen said he hired Leach for his ability to win football games.<\/p>\n

In Leach\u2019s final season at Mississippi State in 2022, the Bulldogs won nine games for only the 10th time in the program\u2019s 121-year history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 21 years as a head coach, Leach went to 19 bowl games and was the winningest coach in Texas Tech history. In 10 of his 21 seasons, Leach\u2019s \u201cAir Raid\u201d offense led the nation in passing yards. Leach\u2019s quarterbacks were responsible for 10 of the 50 most productive passing yardage seasons in FBS history.<\/p>\n

One of Leach\u2019s quarterbacks was Tennessee<\/a> coach Josh Heupel<\/a>. He was recruited to Oklahoma<\/a> by Leach, who was the Sooners\u2019 offensive coordinator in 1999. Under Leach, the Sooners\u2019 offense set six Big 12 Conference and 17 school records.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an innovator of the game and obviously a big-time character,\u201d Heupel said. \u201cEvery time you went into his office, it was an experience, like listening to the Howard Stern show.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Cohen\u2019s favorite memories was when Leach walked into his office while Cohen was on his speakerphone with his daughter Jordan, who was in her first year at Wake Forest University\u2019s School of Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMike asked her if she was taking Property Law and she was, so Mike immediately recited a landmark case verbatim from 80 years ago on the subject,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter told me, \u2018he just recited what our professor told us.\u2019 It was amazing. Mike was a highly intelligent and creative guy. I miss him every day. He had a different way of seeing the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did he ever.<\/p>\n

Leach was the only coach to offer Eric Morris<\/a> a scholarship out of Shallowater (Texas) High School \u2013 and he did so with a magic card trick. Leach told Morris: \u201cIf this stack is red and this stack is black, you have a scholarship.\u201d Said Morris: \u201cI was just hoping this wasn\u2019t a sick joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t. Morris played for Leach at Texas Tech and Leach later offered Morris his first full-time assistant coaching job at Washington State. Now 14 years later, Morris begins his first year this fall as Oklahoma State\u2019s coach after seven seasons at Incarnate Word<\/a> and North Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI owe a lot to that dude,\u201d Morris said. \u201cHe was so eccentric, such a breath of fresh air. Everyone remembers the funny YouTube rants. He was different than any coach I\u2019ve ever been with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut a lot of people didn\u2019t realize how tough it was to be in his program. How he challenges you mentally and physically. He ran a really tight camp. A lot of successful people have come out of his programs because he taught us so many life lessons on being resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leach\u2019s head coaching tree is impressive. It includes Morris, Heupel,\u00a0Lincoln Riley<\/a>, Sonny Dykes<\/a>, Kliff Kingsbury<\/a>, Dave Aranda<\/a>, Sonny Cumbie<\/a>, Dana Holgorsen<\/a>, Neal Brown<\/a>, Jeff Choate<\/a>, JeMarcus Shephard<\/a>, Seth Littrell<\/a>, Art Briles<\/a>, Ken Wilson<\/a> and Ruffin McNeill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at how many great coaches came from his tree and how many he mentored, speaks volumes on what an impact he had,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

Morris remembers a particularly frustrating day as a player at Tech when Leach asked him: \u201c\u2019What\u2019s something you accomplished in life that you\u2019re really proud of that was easy? We\u2019re here to accomplish hard things. They\u2019re not supposed to be easy.\u2019 It was the super simple way he approached (life).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Leach stories are legendary and lengthy: creating a fake offensive script for the 1999 Oklahoma-Texas<\/a> game and leaving it on the sideline (Texas thought it was legit and fell behind 17-0 before UT figured out it was bogus); his fascination with Pirates and Native American leader Geronimo; breaking down who would win a battle of Pac-12 mascots; rating the best Halloween candy on live television after an SEC victory; and frequently providing dating advice in press conferences. He also was the first to propose a 64-team playoff, which we\u2019ll probably get to any day now.<\/p>\n

Like Leach loved to do \u2013 and for anyone who had the privilege of being in his orbit \u2013 we could go on and on. But we\u2019ll add just one more Leach story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2015 when he was at Washington State, the Pac-12 media days were held at Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, Calif.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes before Leach was scheduled to begin his required interviews, he stepped into a restroom. Fifteen minutes later, Leach was nowhere to be found. They checked the restroom and, legend has it, a back window was open, as if Leach had exited through it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe saw this Harry Potter tour go by that he was interested in and just went off with them,\u201d said former Pac-12 vice president of communications Dave Hirsch.<\/p>\n

After missing most of his interviews, Leach eventually returned to the media day events. Leach was asked about wandering off to the Harry Potter tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow my kids are going to be really jealous, in particular the Harry Potter portion of the tour,\u201d Leach said afterward. \u201cI do recommend you go. They have everything from Batman helmets to some cool brass knuckles that the Joker has to Catwoman outfits. Then you can go upstairs to the Harry Potter exhibit and they\u2019ll stick a wizard hat on you and tell you what tribe you\u2019re in. Mine was Huffle-something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huffle-something? Leach was one of a kind and fittingly he\u2019ll be the first member of the \u2018Huffle-something tribe\u2019 inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Leach is one step closer to joining the College Football Hall of Fame. Leach, who passed away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,293275,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-672341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-mike-leach","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}