Miss. State coaching search - John Cohen must hire Mike Leach

Knowing who you are in life can take you a long way to reaching your full potential. The same can be said with a business or sports program.

Mississippi State athletics director John Cohen is right in the middle of looking for a football coach and while the speculation and anticipation amongst the Mississippi State fan base is on alert 10, it’s important for John Cohen to look at history, look at numbers and remember just who Mississippi State is. If he does this, he will see Washington State head football coach Mike Leach is a slam dunk and a must hire for his football program.

News broke yesterday on the Paul Finebaum radio program that Leach was in fact a viable candidate and was being interviewed for the position Joe Moorhead was just fired from.

After several days of rumors of names like Billy Napier, Gene Chizik, Todd Grantham and Steve Sarkisian - the emergence of Leach brought a vast response - some positive, some negative among the fan base of Hailstate.

Right now is the perfect time for John Cohen and Mississippi State to remember just who you are, where you have been and what you need to do to be successful and that is to hire Mike Leach - today, right now.

With only one SEC title, in the history of the program, back in 1941 and one SEC Western Division championship in 1998 - football has not been kind over time to Mississippi State. Yes - Jackie Sherrill gave the Bulldogs bragging rights and a trip to Atlanta in the 90’s becoming the all time winningest coach at that time and yes Dan Mullen gave the Bulldogs nine bowl games and Dak Prescott and a number one ranking a few years ago. For a program with an all time winning percentage of 493- why did that happen and where you have been prior to all that needs to be taken into context.

Jackie Sherrill was tough, hard nose, owned the rooms he walked in and while there was always noise around Sherrill - he was a winner.

Much of the same can be said for Mullen who brought a new offense, a toughness and much like Sherrill - Mullen owned the podium and the room.

Outside of those two coaches it’s been tough sledding in Starkville - in a conference where you are annually the fifth, sixth or seventh most talented team in your own division. The Bulldogs are not opposed to, over their history to whiffing on hiring football coaches; just look at the records of guys named Croom, Felker, Shira, Walker and others. Over time Mississippi State has always needed someone who can inject winning into the pulse of the program and it wasn’t Joe Moorhead and it’s not Sarkisian, Grantham or any other names out there so far - It is however Mike Leach.

To win at a place like Miss. State it takes more than a catchy fourth quarter song and a billboard claiming “Family” or “Our State”. It takes a hard ass, a winner, an innovator and someone who can ratchet it up a notch.

Leach fits that to a tee and has done so everywhere he has been. Yes there is the Craig James saga that looms over Leaches head, but he was somewhat vindicated in that incident and still fumes over that Incident.

What Leach did in Lubbock was take a down trodden program that saw the basement annually and went on a ten year run where he compiled an 84-43 record and 10 bowl games. His overall career record is 139-90.

The same can be said at Washington State, his current employer - where he has now been to six bowl games, sent two quarterbacks in Luke Falk and Gardner Minshew to the National Football League and changed the way people look at playing Washington State.

Yes Leach throws the ball a ton and yes Leach is known for the “air raid”, but lets look at some other things Leach has done and is doing that make him successful.

And - let me also say, don’t be that guy who says yea, “but it’s not SEC”.

** Leaches teams have lived over 30 points per game on most years and over 40 percent on third down conversion. If you are not moving the chains, you are not scoring. His team does that.

** Leaches teams annually live close to 88 percent on red zone scoring.

** Contrary to popular belief, Leach does run the football and has had success. See Ricky Williams at Texas Tech in 2001 - 726 yards and 14 touchdowns.

- 2002 Taurean Henderson 793 yards 7 touchdowns (Henderson was a four year letter who averaged right at 800 yards per season).

• 2006 Shannon Woods 926 yards and 10 touchdowns

• 2009 Barron Batch - 884 yards and 14 touchdowns

• 2016 collectively Washington State rushed for over 1500 yards and 23 rushing touchdowns.

• 2018 collectively Washington State rushed for over 1000 yards and 24 rushing touchdowns.

Let’s not also forget Leach is a double digit win coach against Top 25 teams. While he does have a losing record, and only about 13 percent of all active coaches have a winning record against Top 25 teams - Leach has been one of the best the last three years and better than names like Mullen, Malzahn and Harbaugh.

Fans want to throw out terms like “Fit”, and phrases like “but will he be one of us”. All that matters is winning on Saturdays and Mike Leach can do that. Yes his recruiting profile of his teams have lived in the forties, but at Mississippi State he would be able to maintain and live in the mid to high 20’s - something he hasn’t had the luxury to do.

Ticket sales would be out of the roof, Mississippi State would always win the press conference and people would stay in Starkville to hear what Mike Leach may say - and you would win more football games than you lose - something the Bulldogs haven’t always done.

And yes - it will take Leach a year to recruit and get the types of kids to do what he wants - it took Mullen a year as well. But let’s not kid ourselves, this Miss. State team coming back wasn’t competing for the West anyway and probably headed to the bottom of the West regardless of who is the coach in 2020.

Now is the time - the numbers do not lie and John Cohen needs to put his ego aside and hand the keys to his football program over to the Pirate.

Who cares if Mike Leach doesn’t end up in your selfie or want to hold your baby. who cares that Mike Leach may break down five ways to dissect a differential equation - on Saturday’s he will fill stadiums, put up points and if he gets a defense to play behind him like he has done at both Washington State and Texas Tech at times - he can win you double digit games.

You cannot say that for any other coach on this list. John Cohen needs to hire Mike Leach and do it today if he doesn’t want his program to return to the Croom years or the 1980’s.

Note: photos courtesy of 247sports.com