ICYMI: Mike Leach's Insurgent Warfare and Football Strategy Seminar Went Exactly How You Think it Did
On April 8, Mississippi State students and fans alike gathered in the Old Main Academic Center on MSU's campus in anticipation of something that Bulldog fans had only heard of beforehand.
During Leach's tenure as the head coach of the Washington State Cougars, he and former Washington State senator Michael Baumgartner taught a semester-long course on the relations between insurgent warfare and football strategy.
Baumgartner worked in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad during the Iraq Surge and has seen and dealt with some of the greatest minds and figures that 21st century national security can offer.
The deep-voiced, dryly humored man that he shared the stage with, though, held the attention of the entire room.
The presentation started with two videos -- one depicting the Netflix special "Operation Mincemeat", in which British forces would wash a corpse up onto Spanish shores in order to fool the Third Reich, the most forbidding military power of the time, into thinking they would invade Greece. The Allies would instead invade Sicily, Italy.
The second video was just as important, if you were to ask the room. It detailed the Cotton Bowl Caper, a hilarious story of Leach's time as the Oklahoma Sooner offensive coordinator. Oklahoma was set to play Texas in the 1999 Cotton Bowl, and the Red River Rivalry was as strong as ever. Texas was vastly overpowered, and Leach knew that.
So, what does a tenured offensive coordinator decide to do in order to tackle the machine that is the Texas Longhorns? The answer did not come in a huge game plan swap. It was not something that the coaches poured over for weeks before-hand. Leach drew up a fake play sheet that mimicked the formations the Sooners ran, but with completely different play art.
The trick worked to an extent, although the Sooners ended up losing, and served as the perfect introduction to the seminar.
The Bulldogs led the season in time of possession last year, and if you know Mike Leach, you know that fact alone infuriates him. This conversation prompted a long discussion of just why it is that Leach loathes the long-tenured stat.
"These guys wanna hog the ball," said Leach. "The quarterback stands around there, tickle's the center's ass and watches the clock tick."
Starting quarterback Will Rogers was most definitely in attendance, as we'll see later, and he couldn't help but shake his head at Leach's quick-witted comment.
Leach went on to explain exactly why he runs the Air Raid, and just why he employs the use of the unconventional offense.
"They're gonna play one team like us all year," said Leach. "After that, everyone else is going to play conventional offense."
However, the way that Leach makes his offense different may strike some as simple. He tells his players to simply find green grass.
This rigid simplicity is what Leach says makes his offense special. He doesn't need to spend hours upon hours creating little wrinkles, traps and tricks to fool opposing defenses. He's going to tell his players to simply find the green grass. Every defense has a weakness, and Leach leaves it up to his players to expose that weakness.
Thus began a film study session with signal caller and starting quarterback Will Rogers. Rogers and Leach broke down certain plays from the Louisiana Tech, Kentucky, Texas A&M and Auburn games. There were different looks from each defense - two high safeties, three high, man-to-man, but the results and analyses were all the same. Find grass.
There it is again, that simplistic rigidity that allows this offense to be so flexible. It's what allows Leach to focus on things like skill development and making his players better athletes rather than creating five new formations that the team will only use one week out of the season.
If it sounds simple, that's because it is. To Leach however, it's just football.
