The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

by Jeff Benedict

  After one season, the head coach at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo predicted that Leach would develop into a big-time college football coach. Over the next decade Mike and Sharon crisscrossed the country, taking coaching jobs at College of the Desert in California, Iowa Wesleyan and Valdosta State. Leach even spent a year coaching football in Finland. He held every position from offensive line coach to linebacker coach to quarterback coach. He even served as sports information director and equipment manager at one school. And when all the other coaches left at the end of the day, Leach stayed behind to watch film—always alone, sometimes until dawn—night after night.

  For the first fifteen years of marriage, Sharon made more money doing clerical work and miscellaneous jobs than Mike made coaching. They were happy but broke. Plus, they were up to three kids with a fourth on the way. Then things changed in 1997. Kentucky’s head coach, Hal Mumme, hired Leach as his offensive coordinator. Suddenly Leach jumped from small schools in the middle of nowhere to the SEC, the best conference in college football. His offensive scheme—referred to as “the spread”—would be tested against Florida, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee and Auburn.

  Working under Mumme and drawing from the BYU offense he’d studied in the early 1980s, Leach added new wrinkles that opened up the field even more, making it easier for his quarterback to throw into open passing lanes. “I spend more time trying to make my offense easy for the quarterback to memorize than anything,” Leach said. “I want to make it as simple as possible because I want guys to trigger as quick as possible. The key isn’t finding good plays. The key is packaging.”

  One of the most revolutionary aspects of Leach’s system was spacing the offensive linemen three feet apart. At first glance, it appears to give pass rushers a clear shot at the quarterback. But the result was fewer sacks and cleaner passing lanes for the quarterback. The SEC had never seen anything like it. In Leach’s first season as offensive coordinator, Kentucky upset Alabama and finished the year with the No. 1 offense in the country, led by quarterback Tim Couch. The following year Kentucky knocked off LSU; Couch threw for more than four thousand yards and went on to become the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. Meanwhile, Leach’s offense set six NCAA records and forty-one SEC records. The Wildcats had a winning record in the toughest conference in the country.

  Coaches in the SEC weren’t the only ones who noticed. Coaches from around the country—including Urban Meyer at Notre Dame, Tommy Bowden at Tulane and Mark Mangino at Kansas State—traveled to Kentucky to learn more about Leach’s system. Even a number of NFL coaches made the trek to Lexington. The interest level was so high that Leach made an instructional video on the finer points of throwing and receiving techniques. It sold thousands of copies.

  After two seasons at Kentucky, Leach accepted the position as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. He was there less than one year before he got offered the head job at Texas Tech. The opportunity had some downside. It was 1999 and Tech was on academic probation for recruiting violations, academic fraud and unethical conduct. Eighteen scholarships were stripped from the football program between 1999 and 2001. Not only would Leach be competing against Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M, but he’d be doing it with eighteen fewer scholarships for his first three seasons.

  There were other problems. Tech’s graduation rates were among the lowest in the nation. Leach held two advanced degrees and had no interest in a football culture that ignored the importance of academics.

  Plus, there was the unenviable task of replacing Tech’s Spike Dykes, who had won more games—eighty-two—than any football coach in the history of the school. In Lubbock, where football is right beside God in importance, Dykes was beloved.

  Despite all this, Leach said yes. At thirty-eight, a guy who never played college football was off to Lubbock to coach the Red Raiders in the Big 12.

  Six years later, a cup of coffee in one hand and a remote control in the other, Mike Leach was alone in his office going over game film. Play. Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Next sequence.

  It was after midnight when he stood up to stretch his legs. He parted the blinds on his office window that overlooked the Texas Tech practice facility. That’s when he spotted a shadow moving across the field. It was a human shadow. “Who in the hell is that?” he mumbled.

  The facilities were locked, the lights off. The place was deserted. Leach wondered if it was a prowler. He headed downstairs to have a look.

  Approaching the field, Leach spotted tiny orange cones. They were arranged in rows. Someone was darting in and out of them. Suddenly the figure came into focus.

  “Michael?”

  “Oh, hey, Coach.”

  It was Tech receiver Michael Crabtree, considered the top wideout in the country.

  “Michael, what are you doing?”

  “I got to thinking about the corner route,” he said in between deep breaths. “If I come out of my cut like this”—Crabtree pointed his toes and jigged hard to the right—“I’ll be open every time.”

  Impressed, Leach folded his arms and nodded.

  “So,” Crabtree continued, “I set up some cones, and I’m out here working on it.”

  Leach’s eyes went from Crabtree to the cones and back to Crabtree. The most talented wide receiver in college football was alone in the dark. There was no ball. No quarterback. No position coach to tell him what to do. It was just Crabtree in his stance, doing starts and stops, running in and out of cones.

  The truth was that Crabtree worked out alone at night a lot. He lived across the street from the practice complex and would sneak in after dark. “I always worked on my game,” Crabtree said. “Coach Leach just happened to catch me that night.”

  Determined not to disrupt hard work, Leach turned and headed back inside without saying another word.

  Leach and Crabtree had the kind of relationship that didn’t require much talk. When Leach arrived in Lubbock six years earlier, Tech didn’t land blue-chip recruits like Crabtree. A star quarterback at David W. Carter High School in Dallas, Crabtree was also one of the top high school basketball players in the state. Bobby Knight offered him a basketball scholarship. And Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and LSU were all over him with scholarship offers to play football. Tech’s facilities couldn’t compete with those schools’. And Leach’s budget was a fraction of his rivals’.

  Still, Leach was winning with guys who had been passed over by the Longhorns and the Sooners and the Aggies. In Leach’s first six seasons, Tech had gone 49-28, appeared in six straight bowl games and finished in the top twenty in both 2004 and 2005. But the thing that really got Crabtree’s attention was Leach’s Air Raid offense. “They threw the ball every play,” Crabtree said. “Leach had the whole program going. I said to myself, ‘Man, if I go to Tech, it’s gonna be on.’ ”

  Tech indeed had the most explosive offense in the country when Leach started recruiting Crabtree in 2004. That year, Tech’s football scores often looked like basketball scores. The Red Raiders put up seventy points against TCU. Then they put up seventy against Nebraska, marking the most points scored against the Cornhuskers in the program’s 114-year history. Virtually every Tech game was an offensive exhibition, and Leach’s quarterbacks were leading the nation in passing year in and year out.

  But Leach told Crabtree up front that he planned to play him at receiver, not quarterback. Crabtree had been the best athlete on his high school team, and—as is often the case for superior high school athletes—he got asked to play quarterback. But Leach saw in him all the raw materials to make a great receiver—breakaway speed, great leaping ability, big hands and fearlessness. He went as far as to tell Crabtree that he could see him playing wideout in the NFL.

  Crabtree had never played receiver. But it didn’t take much to convince him to switch. “I didn’t want to stay in college that long,” Crabtree said. “I wanted to get on to the NFL. If I played quarterback, I’d be at Tech for five years. I figured if I played receiver at Tech, I would tear it up.”

>   The chance to play receiver at Tech also made it easier not to choose Texas or Oklahoma. “I didn’t want to go to Texas or OU and just be another guy,” Crabtree said. “I wanted to go somewhere to make a name for myself. With Leach at Tech, I had a chance to take it to another level.”

  All he told Leach, however, was one thing: “I want to score touchdowns.”

  Leach redshirted Crabtree his first year, giving him time to learn a new position. Then Crabtree started as a freshman in 2007. That year he became the first freshman since Herschel Walker named to the AFCA Coaches’ All-America Team. He was also the first freshman to win the Biletnikoff Award, establishing him as the best receiver in the nation. Crabtree started his sophomore season as a projected Heisman candidate.

  Yet Leach never gave him star treatment. Once, when Crabtree missed a couple of blocks during a scrimmage, Leach stopped play.

  “Crabtree,” Leach shouted. “Are you gonna block or just get your ass kicked all day?”

  Crabtree didn’t say a word.

  Leach purposely called another running play to Crabtree’s side. On the snap of the ball, Crabtree exploded into the cornerback, got underneath his shoulder pads, lifted him off the ground and drove him out-of-bounds. The defender’s feet still off the ground, Crabtree kept pumping his legs, taking his man past the bench. By the time Leach blew the whistle, Crabtree had driven the defender up against a fence.

  “I was there to catch balls and score touchdowns, not block,” Crabtree said. “But coach was talking about my blocking. So I showed him that blocking was nothing by driving that guy all over the field.”

  About the only player who worked harder than Michael Crabtree was quarterback Graham Harrell. Leach demanded it. “The quarterback has to work harder than everyone else,” Leach said. “He has to be the first one on the field and the last one off. If he’s not willing to do that, I will find another position for him. But he won’t be a quarterback.”

  Harrell came out of high school as the top quarterback in Texas. In one season he threw for 4,825 yards and sixty-seven touchdowns. His father was his high school coach and pushed him hard. But it was nothing like his experience playing for Leach.

  “He is extremely tough on his quarterbacks,” Harrell said. “There were days when I’d come off the practice field thinking I hated him. He can be extremely critical. But he did it because he expected a lot out of me.”

  Leach didn’t just expect a lot from his players on the field; he demanded excellence off it. By the time Crabtree and Harrell arrived at Texas Tech, Leach’s team had the highest graduation rates at any public institution in Division I football, peaking at 79 percent from 2006 to 2008. He achieved this by benching players who didn’t perform academically. “I don’t want my players missing classes and doing fourth-quarter comebacks academically,” Leach said. “They are here to get a degree, and I reinforce that by holding them accountable for grades.”

  He also held them accountable for what they did off the field. He came up with his own code called the Three Queen Mothers. Players who were caught stealing, hitting a woman or smoking marijuana were kicked off the team, no questions asked.

  “Players who steal can’t be trusted, and trust is very important in football,” Leach explained. “Any man who hits a woman is a coward. And I don’t need cowards on my football team. Smoking dope—or any other drugs—is just selfish. It indicates that your partying is more important than your team. So any player—no matter how talented—is cut if he violates those rules.”

  From the outside looking in, playing for Leach sounds like a grind. He was a tough taskmaster who demanded excellence. “He cussed me out plenty of times, and I respected him for that,” Crabtree said. “Some guys are soft and can’t deal with it. But I realized he just wanted to teach me. He has a great mind, and he helped me understand the game.”

  Leach had his own way of making football fun, too.

  “College football is like a job in many respects,” said Harrell. “It’s full-time. It’s demanding. But Coach Leach made it feel more like a boy’s game.”

  One way Leach accomplished this was with his dry sense of humor and a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush. “There is foul language everywhere, especially in football,” Harrell said. “But Leach is more colorful than anyone. That was another reason the guys loved being around him. Sometimes he’d put words together I’d never even heard. But his language never offended us. We all laughed. That’s just Coach.”

  Leach’s reputation for using four-letter words was so notorious that it even reached the attention of Harrell’s mother. “Graham, do you talk like that?” she asked her son at one point. He laughed. “Mom,” he replied. “No one really talks like that but Coach.”

  Harrell’s parents had raised him not to swear. And he rarely did. His backup Taylor Potts was even more conservative. A practicing Christian, Potts had a reputation for never using four-letter words. So Potts and Harrell got a kick out of the things Leach would say in quarterbacks’ meetings. Eventually, Harrell decided to have some fun with Leach’s colorful quips. It was January 2008, and daily planners had just arrived from the school. A stack was on Leach’s desk. They were designed to help student-athletes budget their time. But Harrell had another use in mind. He handed one to Potts and told him to start writing down all of Leach’s most colorful quotations.

  It was a tall order for a kid who never used the f-word. Potts ended up recording pages of quotations littered with “f***.” He never spelled out the word. One day the quotation book got left behind, and an assistant coach found it. He took it to Leach, informing him that one of the quarterbacks had been writing down everything he said. When Leach saw that the f-word wasn’t spelled out, he knew it had to be Potts.

  The following day when the four quarterbacks came in for their meeting with Leach, he had the book in his hand. “I noticed you all are keeping a little quote book on me,” he said.

  The other quarterbacks glanced at Potts and Harrell.

  “The only thing that really bothers me,” Leach said, “is it seems that Taylor Potts doesn’t know how to spell the word ‘fuck.’ ”

  Harrell covered his mouth. Potts turned red.

  “Now grab a marker and get up on the board,” Leach said.

  Potts stepped to the whiteboard.

  “Okay, now write the letters I tell you,” Leach said. “F-U-C-K. Now that says ‘fuck.’ So if you ever want to know how to spell it, just turn around and it will be right there on the board.”

  The quarterbacks erupted.

  By the 2008 season, Leach had become a cult hero in Lubbock. His quarterbacks had won six national passing titles in eight years, and he had the most prolific offense in the nation. Harrell and Crabtree were the best quarterback-receiver tandem in college football. And only two teams in the Big 12 had a better cumulative record since Leach joined the conference. Needless to say, every home game at Tech’s stadium was sold out.

  Word of Leach’s success went well beyond Lubbock. The author of Moneyball, Michael Lewis, had profiled him in the New York Times Magazine. And national sportswriters had dubbed him The Mad Scientist of Football. No one doubted that Leach was a first-rate college coach. The only question that remained was whether his unorthodox system was capable of contending for a national title.

  The turning point came on November 1, 2008. That night, the No. 1–ranked Texas Longhorns came to Lubbock undefeated. Tech was ranked No. 7 and also undefeated. The two programs were bitter rivals. “I deeply hope we beat their ass today,” Texas Tech’s basketball coach Bobby Knight said hours beforehand on ESPN’s College GameDay. ABC showcased the game in its prime-time Saturday night slot, and announcer Brent Musburger opened the broadcast by saying it was the biggest game in Texas Tech history.

  A record crowd—56,333 fans in black and red, carrying swords and wearing eye patches and bandannas—was on its feet throughout. Texas trailed the entire way until late in the fourth quarter.

  With 1:29 rema
ining in the game, the Longhorns scored a touchdown to go up 33–32.

  Graham Harrell was on the Tech sideline, looking up at the clock. He had led ten scoring drives in 1:30 or less that season. But this felt different. The stakes had never been so high. The audience had never been so big. The chance to beat the best team in college football was in the balance. Tech had only one time-out left.

  “Hey,” one of his teammates yelled. “Leach wants to talk to you.”

  Harrell hustled over to Leach, prepared to hear something profound. The tension in the stadium was palpable. But Leach was relaxed and showed no emotion. He didn’t even raise his voice.

  “Now listen to me,” he said. “Just make routine plays.”

  “I got ya.”

  “Everybody needs to get out-of-bounds. But don’t be afraid to throw over the middle. Late in the game the middle is exposed.”

  Harrell nodded.

  “Now come here,” Leach said, his voice getting even quieter.

  Harrell took a step closer.

  “Listen to me. There’s gonna be guys out there that don’t believe we can march down and score. You need to get these guys going and make them believe we can score.”

  “No doubt,” Harrell said, bouncing up and down on his toes. “No doubt.”

  “You make ’em believe. Huddle ’em up. Make sure everyone believes.”

  “We’re ready to go.”

  “All right. Now let’s go out there and shove it up their fuckin’ ass and score a touchdown.”

  Harrell grinned. “All right, Coach.” He trotted onto the field.

  So much for profound. Harrell had heard that same late-game speech so many times he could recite it, right down to the last sentence. Even Leach’s tone was the same. “He was really good about staying even keel no matter the situation,” Harrell said. “It helped me to see him so calm. He doesn’t have a football background. So football was never an emotional game to him. It was always analytical. With Coach Leach, when the offense gets the ball, you are supposed to score. That’s it.”