Podcast Alert: Mike Leach – Mississippi State

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Mike Leach: College football players have a higher graduation rate than the regular incoming freshman. And that’s just a fact. You know, they all think these guys don’t want to graduate. They just want to go to the NFL. Yeah, they might want to go to the NFL, but I mean, at least 85% of my players are determined to graduate.

[00:00:33] AJ Maestas: Hello and welcome to the Navigating Sports Business Podcast. I’m your host, AJ Maestas, founder of Navigate a data-driven consulting firm, guiding major strategies and decisions in sports and entertainment. We started this podcast hoping to share the interesting stories and experiences of the amazing people we get to work with at Navigate.

And even though they’re visionaries and famous in many instances, their true stories aren’t often heard since they’re not on the playing field. Our hope is you get to know them better and [00:01:00] learn from them as we have.

We are going to be talking with Head Football Coach at Mississippi State, Mike Leach today. He is a bit of a legend, not only for his interesting and amazing personality and philosophies and character, but also for his on-field performance. Two time national coach of the year, two time Pac-12 coach of the year, Big 12 coach of the year, often in environments where. I would argue they have less resources and natural recruiting advantages versus their peers in those conferences. The Pac-12, Big 12, and now SEC. And yet he has consistently outperformed expectations and even historical norms for those universities. So some of the things we talk about a little bit about his hometown and growing up in Wyoming. The population movement there. He has some really cool ideas. If he were the czar of the NCAA, he actually kind of flipped this whole name, image, likeness thing into two branches.

You can be a pro, but you gotta deal with free agency. You’re in a draft. You don’t choose [00:02:00] where to go to school. You can be cut, you can be traded. And then the model that looks a lot more like today’s student athletes, but he’s got some cool twists on that too. Like a bonus if you finish your eligibility, play out your years and get your degree, he’s got views on the CFP, in an expanded playoff.

And I think they’re different than you’ve heard from other folks. Talks about a little bit of his time with Michael Lewis. I have a feeling Michael Lewis was considering him for a book, and many more fun anecdotes and twists and turns as he takes us on a bike ride through the Florida Keys, where he spends lot of his downtime.

I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. And please do excuse the background noise. This is the cost of attendance to have a conversation with a person like Mike Leach on his free time.

Where in the world do we find you?

[00:02:41] Mike Leach: I’m in Florida on my bike, bike around the islands here.

[00:02:45] AJ Maestas: Oh, the Keys. I understand you love it out there in the Florida keys, right?

[00:02:49] Mike Leach: It’s a great place to just kinda hang out, decompress. You can eat good here too, there’s fish everywhere. You know, everybody eat fish, eat [00:03:00] fish, and it’s hard to get fish. It’s not hard to get it here.

[00:03:02] AJ Maestas: Yeah. I’m trying to eat healthier myself and it would be nice to be on the ocean like that.

I live in Scottsdale, Arizona now. By the way, that’s the last time we were together in person. I don’t know if you remember, I, I left you and Sharon at The Mission, my favorite Mexican restaurant in old town Scottsdale.

[00:03:15] Mike Leach: Yeah that was a great place. It was weirdly fancy, but it was, the food was outstanding. Really good food.

[00:03:22] AJ Maestas: Yeah, pretty amazing place. So are you a small town guy, I know you grew up in Wyoming, but Lubbock and Pullman now Starkville, like, is that just random chance or is that you feel at home? You want to be in these small college towns?

[00:03:33] Mike Leach: Well, I like small college towns because first of all, there’s some energy there.

I think that the players, they draw from the energy. The town 24 hours a day, 365 days a year is all about the college, what’s going on at the college, you know, the university and that everybody feels like they’re a part of something kind of special, kind of a big deal.

And then there’s a kind of a sense of comradery and teamwork, which, I mean, you [00:04:00] almost have to be in it to feel it, to understand what that’s really like. But I always like that aspect of it. I mean, any game that you play or how the team’s doing. Everybody’s just hanging on every bit of it, where if you’re in a major city, you can have the game of your life or have a great win and you can go two blocks, they don’t even know you played.

So I do think the energy there. That’s generated the very special deal. And of course I grew up in Cody, Wyoming. When I lived there, it was probably 6,000 people. Now it’s up to a whopping nine and a half thousand or so.

[00:04:36] AJ Maestas: Right, right, right. I’m from Fairbanks, Alaska.

It’s not so different than Cody. How would you feel when you think of the administration of collegiate athletics? You could argue some funny things are happening, right? And you could say there’s a lack of centralized leadership. That’s in front of some of these things like name, image, and likeness, and you know, the conferences, realignment.

If you’re the czar of collegiate athletics, let’s say you have sweeping power, which allows you [00:05:00] to remove any rule you want, create anything you think necessary. What would you do? What would you do in this climate? We have here in collegiate athletics?

[00:05:07] Mike Leach: Like anybody, when this stuff hit, I was thinking about it. Well, I think we’ve overcomplicated it, you know, right now you have high school kids.

And I remember when I was in high school, some of these people, legislating this stuff evidently have no recollection between high school and college. So, you know, I’d be the perfect guy to dump a bunch of money in my lap and say, here, go run with it. And by the way, go to practice some times you know?

What a great idea that would be. Right now we have all these guys who are saying, all right, fine, everybody’s a pro, but they don’t have any of the responsibilities to being a pro. But then in the NFL, we never hear about what, you know, the safety fee or somebody for the Redskins makes the name, image, and likeness there in Washington DC part of it is because he might get traded.

He may not make the roster. That’s if he does get something it’s fairly temporary, you know, because pros, don’t just [00:06:00] select schools and paycheck before they’ve ever played a down of college football. They get drafted, they get traded and they get cut. Right now, the thing’s way out of balance.

Yeah. All the benefits of being a pro, but none of the responsibility and you know, there’s responsibility to anything. And so then, and yeah, I say you want to be like the NFL fine. Make it like the NFL. But that’s not, that’s not what’s being done in college. And then the other thing which I think’s really irresponsible is people are so dismissive and ignore the value of a guy graduating. You know?

College football players have a higher graduation rate than the regular incoming freshman. And that’s just a fact. And you can look it up. And then, they all think these guys don’t want to graduate. They just wanna go to the NFL. Yeah. They might want to go to the NFL, but only, it’s a very small traction that’s going to, but with rare exception, they want to graduate.

I mean, at least [00:07:00] 85% of my players are determined to graduate. Some of, in some cases kind of heartwarming. I mean, a guy gonna be the first in his family to graduate from college. And in some cases, these are guys aren’t very good students, I mean, it’s not what they’re best. Maybe they’re from a background where they’re not as well prepared for college, but they’re determined to graduate.

Cause their family runs a lot of pride from that. Then, you know, their kids, their families, they’re in a better position once they leave the NFL by a narrow margin if they’re ever even lucky enough to get there. You know, the schools benefit from the standpoint. Then they have alums with degrees.

I mean, I got one guy. Good. And I remember him. One was a walk-on D lineman and the other was an offensive one, sold their first company for 650 million dollars, and they’ve sold another one for hundreds of millions. I mean, it’s insane, but you know we can’t dismiss the role in preparing, developing, [00:08:00] responsible people that can take care of their families and achieve in society beyond just getting some little endorsement because they had a fast time in high school or something. And what I would do, cause I think in, in some players are gonna want that. Some players aren’t gonna wanna be drafted, traded, or cut. Okay.

And I don’t think they can be denied that, but just like today, what would my plan be today? Which I I’m sure it probably needs a little work, but my plan today would be there’s two tiers. You can come into college as a recruited athlete. And that’s how it is right now.

We recruit you. You decide what school you go to. You get room, board and books. So you get you know, all the, the current you know, the current scholarship and stipend and grant level right now. If you graduate from that university, and you play out all your eligibility at that school. [00:09:00] When you leave, you get $150,000, you know, start your business, you can get another degree, whatever you want do with it.

[00:09:08] AJ Maestas: Option one is like today, and then, and then you get a $150K bonus with a degree.

[00:09:12] Mike Leach: If you get a degree and you complete your eligibility at one school. Now, if you go on the portal and leave, you’re no longer eligible for the $150,000. Because tell the NFL, just as an example, as a side note, tell the NFL that you’re gonna have unmitigated free agency, 365 days a year.

And then from one team to the next, you’re gonna just have a glorified bidding war on what athletes go where. I mean, there’s the reason they have a salary cap and they have a free agency window. I mean, they’d lose their mind.

[00:09:43] AJ Maestas: I think a lot of people have cited that. Well, tell me about your option two.

[00:09:46] Mike Leach: Option two, I want to come in as a pro. You go on the pro list. Everybody’s got the pro list. Your name is added to it, and now you get drafted. Okay. You don’t just get to go to whatever school you want. [00:10:00] You don’t just go to, you know, Ohio State or Texas A&M or whatever. And you go wherever you’re drafted.

You know what that sounds like, that sure sounds like pros to me. Now, a pro he gets name, image and likeness, but he can be cut or traded. So like, for example, if we needed an O lineman, the college guys, we can’t cut or trade them. Then we go, okay, who are our pros? Let’s see pros. Okay. This receiver here.

We need that lineman. San Jose’s got a good lineman. Okay, so we’re gonna trade him to San Jose, then you trade or you cut him. You know, some guy he’s not playing well, you know, for whatever reason, he gets distracted by name, image, and likeness money, he doesn’t play well, but he’s a pro well, you cut him and then you, can take his money and give it to the walk-on behind him that’s been playing well and playing in place of him all year. Or you can use it put towards some guy you’re gonna trade for or potentially draft.

[00:10:59] AJ Maestas: This [00:11:00] is honestly an original idea that I’ve not heard before. Right. And I get it. It’s a hybrid of the two models. I like it. Well if you don’t mind me asking something, I can’t resist.

I think you’ve gotten to know Jeff Nelson our President. He’s been at a lot of these SEC meetings the last few years. And he was talking with your Athletic Director, John Cohen. John says your players love you. And I think you’re hilarious. I think you’re a national treasure, just, you know, I’m a huge fan. But, it isn’t something that would’ve struck me as true to say that you relate really well to your players.

I would’ve thought there would’ve been a generational gap or what is it, how do you have 18 to 22 year olds? These are gen Z kids who as I’m told by John, right, will run through a brick wall for you.

[00:11:38] Mike Leach: Well, I hope that’s true. I’d like to think it is. I don’t know that it is really cuz I’m too close to the fire to tell, you know, but I always try to just be honest with them.

I mean, I want everybody to know where they stand and I really think sincere communication. I mean, I would like to think my guys aren’t guessing what I’m thinking. You know, that I’ve already told them [00:12:00] and they can talk to me about anything and they are gonna get an honest answer and you know, and the one thing in practice, you’re not gonna be any good without a lot of repetition.

I mean, just incredible repetition over and over and over and over because, no matter what offense you run, you run the ball the time or whether you throw the ball, it’s still a game of execution. On the outside, as you talk to reporters, they think it’s just a, some of ’em think it’s an episode of the Road Runner Wile E. Coyote. Like, oh, okay. We’re gonna fool this guy. Now we fool that guy. I mean, you try to fool him some and maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but in the end, it’s execution and you execute what you’re doing better than they can execute what they’re doing. And, and so that’s gonna require constant repetition.

And requiring constant repetition, you still wanna stir it up and make it fun. Think of something a little extra, keep it fun while you’re doing it, you want practice to be a 10. You want to be [00:13:00] fast. If somebody’s not giving a good effort, do not hesitate to get up their ass. But if a guy’s just wrong, if he’s trying hard and he’s wrong, then that’s your fault that either he can’t do it, or it’s your fault as a coach, because you haven’t taught him well enough.

And don’t ask guys to do things they can’t do. Sometimes maybe there’s a discovery. You oh well you can’t do that. Well, what’s Danny doing? Try to figure out what that is. They’ve gotta have fun while they’re doing it.

[00:13:25] AJ Maestas: You know, a couple of these things in the repetition. It reminds me of a story I heard about you once that like your offensive coordinator came to you with a new formation thinking, there was a wrinkle that was gonna exploit something defenses were doing for you or to you.

And as I understand it, your response was sure we can put that in the playbook. What would you like to remove from our existing playbook to make room for this play? Kind of the idea that you have a very set, clean, simple playbook. I don’t know if you’re willing to share about that belief in system.

[00:13:52] Mike Leach: Yeah, well, a couple times I’ve had an OC, but yeah, I’m basically the OC.

I call the plays. It’s funny [00:14:00] because I got into coaching to coach and really enjoyed calling plays. And it didn’t make sense to me. So many guys who do a good job as an assistant coach and when they get to become a head coach, but no, because it’s so easy for these packages, we get too big. You know, we update plays all the time techniques all the time just to stay on top of it.

And if nothing else. A lot of times it reinforces what we’re already doing and that’s a value too, because you’re always wondering, you know, what’s better out there and we’re more likely to change a technique or some little aspect than a whole play. But if you change a formation or a play, you only have so much time to prepare and execute what you’re doing.

So once you get your package, almost every package is way too big. I can’t think of hardly any that are too small. Hardest thing to do is coach is control the package. Now, in order to control your package, you get totally excited about all [00:15:00] these plays. Like I left the wishbone, but there’s no room in my package for the wishbone. I mean, wishbone is an offense, not a play. So then conservatively speaking, which 10 plays that I already have that I like also, am I gonna drop in order to run the wishbone?

[00:15:17] AJ Maestas: May I ask you some rapid fire questions?

[00:15:19] Mike Leach: Sure.

[00:15:19] AJ Maestas: Okay, cool. If you were the czar of collegiate athletics, what would you do with the playoff?

You know, they’ve been talking about expanding to 12. Do you like where it’s at right now? Four teams. What do you think’s appropriate?

[00:15:29] Mike Leach: Well, I think at the least it should be 16. I think 32’s better, 64 would require a little bit of adjustment. Not as much as people think. If you did 64, you have to cut the regular season down to 10 games.

And then, but you guarantee everybody 12. So in between the natural breaks of the playoff those who didn’t make the playoffs could play games. I mean, people are all around the TV watching games on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, you know, so they could play [00:16:00] on those weekends and natural breaks from the playoffs, but guarantee everybody 12, you know, somebody doesn’t make the playoffs or get eliminated after the first game they got one game left. They play somebody across the country. To win in a format of 64, you will have played 16 games.

One thing I think college football could improve at a little. We just give the NFL the month of December.

And that makes no sense. I mean, why are we giving them December? I mean, we’ll have a handful of bowl games until late December, but between Thanksgiving and like say the 20th of December, we just give it to the NFL. To the point too, that they start playing, you know, all kinds of days besides Sunday. And then, you know, if you had playoffs and stuff like that, you would utilize December.

So I think, I like 64 best, 32 the next best. 16 should be the minimum. And then, oh, it’d be really exciting. It’d be thrilling. I mean, I’ve been some crazy plate and an incredible number of [00:17:00] people don’t know where Gonzaga is. Cause you go around the country. There’s all these Gonzaga fans. They don’t even know where it is.

And I always walk up to them and they’ll have a Gonzaga hat or a Gonzaga jacket. Not if I’m in Washington, because Gonzaga’s in Spokane. So, but like if I’m on the east coast or in Texas or something, I’ll go, hey, are you from Spokane? Yeah they’ll give me no where’s Spokane? You’ve got a Gonzaga jacket on. Well, when I was a little kid, I watched Gonzaga they’d play in the tournament, all that.

It’s my favorite team. I watch ’em all the. I love can Gonzaga, you know, and so I think if you’re a power five conference, you gotta just trust your teams to win in the playoff format, which they probably will. And then the other thing is you can debate all you want, this team could be national champions, that team, okay, you might think this team or that team was sort of better, but there’s no arguing once you get through the gauntlet that you deserve it.

[00:17:59] AJ Maestas: I’m a fan of it too. [00:18:00] It’s just meritocratic. Right? You can have a superstar quarterback or a superstar left tackle. What do you choose?

[00:18:07] Mike Leach: I love O line more than any position, but you have to go with the quarterback, you know, because you’re gonna have to fill another O lineman anyway, you take the quarterback.

[00:18:15] AJ Maestas: In college football, do you think it’s the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s or the X’s and the O’s. What do you think?

[00:18:20] Mike Leach: I think it’s both. I think it’s both. I think you gotta get the best Jimmy’s and Joe’s you possibly can, but if it’s just Jimmy’s and Joe’s, then nobody needs coaches. I mean, you get Jimmy’s and Joe’s, and I’ve never believed that. You’ve got control over a certain amount of how these Jimmy’s and Joe’s perform and developing more Jimmy’s and Joe’s so, utilize it to the best of your ability and put ’em in the best position to be successful.

[00:18:44] AJ Maestas: Okay. I like that. So you’ve had a lot of viral moments in interviews and press conferences. Is there anyone that’s your favorite? Like do you look back and you’re like, that was pretty funny?

[00:18:53] Mike Leach: I don’t know. The interview with Michael Lewis on New York Times Magazine was a good one.

60 Minutes because it was 60 [00:19:00] Minutes, but Michael Lewis came for a week. Interviewed me for New York Times Magazine, our team at Texas Tech. And then we became really good friends. And then the other thing that that’s kind of cool about it was ah, you know, you sit there and watch all this film and rattle off one rhetorical question after the next and gotta get through the film.

And having Michael Lewis, just asking stuff or sidebar conversations while you’re watching film, I missed him when he was gone.

[00:19:26] AJ Maestas: But it was in the, it was in the realm and you fit with this, right? It was in the, the theme of finding these hidden gems of people who find new and creative ways and get more out of less much like the, A’s as an example and much like yourself.

Just a couple more of these quick-hitting questions. First thing you do in the morning, when you wake up, last thing you do before you go to sleep?

[00:19:44] Mike Leach: First thing I do when I wake up. Drink water, pace around, look at my phone. And I’m ashamed to say the phone part.

[00:19:52] AJ Maestas: Yeah, well most people are guilty then. Before you go to bed, last thing before you fall asleep?

[00:19:57] Mike Leach: Shut off the TV. I know it [00:20:00] probably causes me to stay up late. It’s advised against. I always find myself curious about something. I end up watching between half an hour and two hours longer than I could, you know, whether it’s some documentary or like some Better Call Saul type of deal.

[00:20:15] AJ Maestas: It’s all right. Honesty’s the best policy. How about this one big one here. Last one. And big one. What are you most proud of in your career or life?

[00:20:22] Mike Leach: Well, probably my family and my kids, but, you know, and I know that everybody would say that.

[00:20:27] AJ Maestas: Not everybody.

[00:20:28] Mike Leach: But you know, that’s kinda what you’re here for, you know, to a point, kinda do something and make the world better.

[00:20:35] AJ Maestas: Well, coach Mike Leach, I’m so grateful that you took the time to do this. It was pretty fun to basically go on a bike ride around the Florida Keys with you and catch up on all things. I really am super grateful for you sharing your time like this.

[00:20:47] Mike Leach: Yeah, I really appreciate your having me on, sorry it’s so tough to connect, but glad we did.

[00:20:52] AJ Maestas: Yeah, I’m really glad we did too. Well, you know what from the random chance of being in Jerusalem at the same time as you, the summer of 2018, [00:21:00] well, let’s see each other in some other unbelievable place around the world in summer of ’23. How about that?

[00:21:04] Mike Leach: Sounds good.

[00:21:05] AJ Maestas: Cool. Congratulations on all your wonderful success and thank you again for joining me and have an amazing summer.

[00:21:10] Mike Leach: Alright, thanks for having me on.

[00:21:11] AJ Maestas: If anybody listening is any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us. My email is AJ@NVGT.com it’s kind of Navigate with no vowels, and you can also connect with us on our LinkedIn page or my personal LinkedIn page. So that’s Navigate for myself. Again. This is AJ. Maestas joined by Mike Leach. Thank you again for joining us on Navigating Sports Business.