TTs Mike Leach to Washington!

[LAKESHOW]

Texas Tech athletic director Gerald Myers says the school is negotiating a contract extension with Mike Leach, amid reports that the Red Raiders coach has met with the University of Washington about the Huskies' top job.



http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3741224

[studcrackers]

your thread title is misleading

[hermes]

stay at Tech Mike!

[HeavyP]

As a diehard UW fan I can only hope he comes here. And yes, your title is misleading. Nothing is finalized yet. I also heard Leach hasn't been offered the job.

My top 6 at the beginning of the coaching search was:
Kiffin
Leach
Chris Petersen
Kyle Whittingham
Will Muschamp
Brian Kelly

If UW can get Leach, Petersen or Whittingham I'll be estatic. I just hope we settle for Pat Hill

[A.J.]

I wouldnt be surprised if Leach accepts the Auburn job over Washington.

[El Turco]

imo, he is using Washington as a leverage during contract talks. i dont know why he would leave Tech where he has a better recruit pool and already established momentum.

[GSWbandwagon]

i agree that he's using uw as leverage, but i disagree about the recruiting pool. he's at best #3 for recruits in his own state (ut gets more or less whoever they want, oklahoma can pull recruits much easier than tt) and sometimes lower (when a&m is up for instance). at uw he'd be the big dog (pardon the pun) in the state. uw is still able to get a good chunk of top tier washington talent to stay home even with their program falling apart. they'd lock down the pacific northwest if they became an elite team. tt can become elite and still have to wait for ut and okla's leftovers. last recruiting cycle scout had tex a&m ranked 15th and tt ranked 59th (partially due to class size).

leach's overall record isn't that great all things considered. he's a hot coach right now and if i were him i'd either get myself locked into huge money at tt or even bigger money at a bigger name program (auburn?).

maybe uw can follow in ksu's footsteps and bring the dawgfather out of retirement?

[El Turco]

Tech has competition true but Texas also has the largest/best talent pool in the country along with Florida. 4th or 5th best recruiting class in Texas might very well be better than best recruiting class in WA. i dont know Washington's recent recruitment success in northwest without looking up, but they still have to fend off teams that have been more successful recent seasons such as USC, Oregon and OSUjr, no?

i do agree Auburn job looks like the most lucrative one out there

[KingInExile]

moot point now...UW has hired Steve Sarkasian.

[GSWbandwagon]

california is the best talent pool.

a strong uw dominates the northwest. they'd probably lose a few recruits here and there to usc, but usc pulls them from everywhere. they take them out of lsu and fla's back yards too. even a mediocre uw easily outrecruits osu and wsu. those two only get high ranked recruits if the recruits have major red flags (unlikely to qualify for example). osu actually focuses more on instate recruiting than oregon does, while oregon tries to get players out of the bay area (part of the reason they fell as cal rose). uw is in seattle, which iirc is easily the biggest market in the northwest. i'm not someone who follows recruiting intensely but that's my perception.

looking at scout's 2008 rankings, uw (in their worst stretch of football in decades) had the 15th ranked class pulling in 7 four stars and a five star. this was built largely on local guys (6 of the 8 top ranked guys were in state recruits). scout's rankings history goes back to 2002 and it looks like back when uw was sliding but still respectable they were pulling top 25 classes every year.

[El Turco]

dominating state of Washington wont be enough for UW if they want to be successful, they probably also have substantial success in nearby states upcoming years and constant disappointing seasons and turmoil will only affect that negatively. it would be one thing if UW was having a bad season in a largely winning program but UW sucked ever since 01 season and is not showing any sign of improvement. i dont know why Leach step into that mess instead of staying at up and coming(iirc, they are in top 25 next season's recruiting class) winning program he virtually created, unless they throw major money at him. sounds like Leach himself agrees with me.

[PhilipNelsonFan]

This just shows me that UW is not serious about building a competitive football program. Not that there's anything wrong with that...it's a good school academically. But if they're expecting a dramatic turnaround in the football team's performance, it's not coming.

Steve Sarkisian is the ultimate "safe hire" who won't do as bad as Willingham but also won't lead the team to many victories before he's released from his contract. He's mediocre compared to other coordinators USC has shuffled through lately; some people are saying that Lane Kiffin is set up to fail at Tennessee, and Sarkisian is in a worse situation.

[craig01]

some people are saying that Lane Kiffin is set up to fail at Tennessee, and Sarkisian is in a worse situation.

I agree. Both schools are recruiting nightmares given the successful schools they have to recruit against. Both schools have a severe lack of talent compared to years past.

[Icness]

Washington made a good hire IMO. Sarkisian is a brilliant offensive mind and he's got recruiting experience.

I think the Huskies are a sleeping giant. They have outstanding facilities and some tradition. It's also a situation where a couple of strong recruiting classes in a row (that pan out) can get them to no worse than 3rd in the Pac-10.

Tennessee is primed for a prolonged slump IMO, which is a shame because I believe Lane Kiffin will make an outstanding collegiate coach. The rise of VA Tech, UNC, and Ole Miss really shuts off a lot of their recruiting inroads into the talent-rich areas in those states that they've raided before.