Officially, the WSU kind. Unofficially, the college football kind.
Mike Leach is a Hall of Fame head football coach.
WSU announced as much this week when it named the late coach to its 2024 athletic hall of fame class alongside Alissa Brooks-Johnson (women’s track), Micaela Castain (soccer), Don Collins (men’s basketball) and DeWayne Patterson (football).
Leach won 55 games in his eight seasons in Pullman and revived a floundering program that was bereft of enough talent and eyeballs into one that was flashy, exciting, dramatic and successful. His 11 wins in 2018 is a school record.
But Leach is not yet eligible for the College Football Hall of Fame because he is one win shy of the minimum winning percentage of .600. Here’s the entire criteria for coaches:
A coach becomes eligible three full seasons after retirement or immediately following retirement provided he is at least 70 years old. Active coaches become eligible at 75 years of age. He must have been a head football coach for a minimum of 10 years and coached at least 100 games with a .600 winning percentage.
That’s it. That’s the criteria. No mention of impact on the game, no mention of things other than wins, losses and longevity.
Debates over whether someone (in any sport, really) is worthy of their sport’s hall of fame are endless and oftentimes tiring. The College Football Hall of Fame creates a minimum bar coaches have to leap over, which isn’t bad in and of itself. It’s the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good.
But judging hall of fame worthiness solely on wins and losses regardless of era or location puts us in these kinds of situations. Traditionally, clearing the .600 winning percentage mark at places like USC, Miami, Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Texas, etc., is objectively more attainable compared to places like Lubbock, Pullman and Starkville.
And that’s just wins and losses. There’s no debate that Leach helped make the Air Raid the go-to brand of football in our modern times. It’s proven to be effective no matter where you’re located and no matter the level. We see it at high schools, colleges and multiple Super Bowl winning teams. Leach literally revolutionized the game of football. Not just college football, but football.
Leach wasn’t the first to run the Air Rad, but he brought it to the mainstream. Plus, check out his coaching tree and look at the coaches who coached or played under Leach and count the ones who are also running a version of the Air Raid.
As Jon Wilner wrote recently, there could someday be an exception made for Leach. Plenty of fans will undoubtedly get behind a campaign to get him in the College Football Hall of Fame.
His sad and untimely death—he could have easily cleared the .600 winning percentage mark had he been able to keep coaching—is just one reason the Hall of Fame should consider an exception.
It’s easy to look back at find that one loss that should have been a win (and no, none of this has anything to do with poor officiating, as some have blabbed about). The New Mexico Bowl, Cal in 2013, UCLA in 2018, etc.
None of that should preclude Leach from being in the College Football Hall of Fame. His impact on the game is too great to not be recognized.