Eli Drinkwitz wanted to lobby for Mike Leach.
Speaking at the Southeastern Conference media days podium last week in Dallas, Drinkwitz used a portion of his opening statement to advocate for the late coaching legend to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
“Coach Leach, in my mind, and I believe in most of the people in this room, is a no-doubt Hall of Famer,†Drinkwitz said. “He impacted our game more in the last 50 years than a lot of other people, not only with his legacy but also with his football acumen.â€
Leach, one of the sport’s most compelling characters and the genesis of the air raid offense, died in December 2022 from complications of a heart condition at age 61.
His final coaching stop was Mississippi State, a tenure he began in 2020 in sync with Drinkwitz’s time at Missouri. The two coaches faced each other at the tail end of that season, a 51-32 Bulldogs win in Starkville, Mississippi.
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Drinkwitz has long admired the way Leach’s coaching and tactics have ingrained themselves across different levels of football.
“His air raid offense is the dominant offense when you look at high school football, its elements in college football and all the way translating into the NFL game,†Drinkwitz said. “We all know ‘Y cross.’ We all know that ‘six’ is four verticals. We all understand that ‘rocket’ (and) ‘laser’ were tailback screens — ‘rocket’ to the right, ‘laser’ to the left.â€
After Leach’s death, Mizzou honored him with “MIKE†stickers on its helmets, replacing the I with a pirate-emblazoned cowbell — a nod to Leach’s nickname and a Mississippi State tradition. During warmups for the 2022 Gasparilla Bowl, Drinkwitz wore a shirt featuring Leach on the front and his “swing your sword†catchphrase on the back.
Since then, MU has hired an assistant coach with close ties to Leach. Offensive line coach Brandon Jones played for him at Texas Tech, when Leach went 1-3 against the Tigers in the Big 12. What Jones learned as a player for Leach is something he has tried to channel as a coach.
“Just keeping things simple,†Jones said last summer. “That’s one of the things that I don’t know if a lot of people understood. I know he’s very intriguing and he’s the world’s most interesting man. But he did keep things simple. And we were always mentally tough. That’s one thing that I ask my players to be, just how you handle adversity. Those are some things that he’s instilled in me. And I love him to death for it.â€
Part of Drinkwitz’s push for Leach to become a Hall of Famer resonates around the SEC because the conference will hold its 2025 media days at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
“It reminded me to call on CEO Steve Hatchell to do the right thing and to nominate Mike Leach for the College Football Hall of Fame,†Drinkwitz said. “We need to put his name on the ballot.â€
At face value, there’s one detail of Leach’s career that would hold him back from a spot in the Hall: Coaches must have a .600 career winning percentage.
Leach went 158-107 in his three head coaching stops, which came at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. That puts him at .596. If any one of those losses had been a win, he would have hit .600.
“I understand that standards are there for people to make decisions,†Drinkwitz said, “but I also understand that Coach Leach would be a great value to the Hall of Fame because of the legacy that he has, because of the impact that he made, because of the innovator that he was, because of the legacy of coaches that he left. And in my opinion, not only a winner but a Hall-of-Famer.
“And I hope that Mr. Hatchell will recognize that as CEO he has the ability to utilize his discretion to make the obvious into reality, and the obvious is that the Hall of Fame is incomplete without coach Mike Leach in it.â€