A little assessment on Leach in comparison to others

[Cougatron]

Let's take a look to see how things are holding up.

Leach through 4 years
2012 - 3-9
2013 - 6-7
2014 - 3-9
2015 - 6-3* (4 games left)

18 wins* - 2 bowl game appearances
Games remaining 4* (Including bowl game)

Mike Price (the best coach we have ever had) (total wins
6-5
3-8
4-7
9-3

22 wins 1- bowl appearance

Jim Walden

3-7
3-8
4-7
8-3

18 wins - 1 bowl appearance

So wow...looking at this it actually looks very very similar. What a surprise. Leach has already tied Walden with 4 games left, and would need to win out to match Mike Price. Still pretty impressive for someone who "wasn't going to get it done"

 

[MikeFingLeach]

Even more impressive when you consider the starting line was vastly different for each coach. Leach was forced to run the race with his shoe laces tied together.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

As people may have remembered I showed some historical trends for what to look for on Coug coaches in the past that apparently upset a small group of the misinformed, but let's take a look to see how things are holding up.


Leach through 4 years

2012 - 3-9
2013 - 6-7
2014 - 3-9
2015 - 6-3* (4 games left)

18 wins* - 2 bowl game appearances
Games remaining 4* (Including bowl game)

Mike Price (the best coach we have ever had) (total wins
6-5
3-8
4-7
9-3

22 wins 1- bowl appearance

Jim Walden

3-7
3-8
4-7
8-3

18 wins - 1 bowl appearance


So wow...looking at this it actually looks very very similar. What a surprise. Leach has already tied Walden with 4 games left, and would need to win out to match Mike Price. Still pretty impressive for someone who "wasn't going to get it done" and all that other garbage that people discounted...Is it surprising?...Not if you actually know what you are talking about, but hey not everybody can be smart.

Given the money that we are paying Leach, I would hope that he is the best coach that we've ever had. FWIW, there are only a couple people saying that Leach wasn't going to get it done. Your idiotic revisionism is getting old. Most of the so-called naysayers were saying that it was time to get things done and flush the 3-9 seasons down the toilet. Quit using Wulff as a crutch and earn that multi-million dollar paycheck. Leach and the team have come through and taken care of that. You keep pounding your chest like you personally have accomplished something and you haven't.

 

[Cougatron]

Given the money that we are paying Leach, I would hope that he is the best coach that we've ever had. FWIW, there are only a couple people saying that Leach wasn't going to get it done. Your idiotic revisionism is getting old. Most of the so-called naysayers were saying that it was time to get things done and flush the 3-9 seasons down the toilet. Quit using Wulff as a crutch and earn that multi-million dollar paycheck. Leach and the team have come through and taken care of that. You keep pounding your chest like you personally have accomplished something and you haven't.

Again, you're one of the guys who kept saying that we would need to wait until up to year six for us to get to a bowl game again. Not me, and not most Coug fans. If anything, you've been the one underselling Leach in the short term. The message from most of us was "if he's really worth it, it should show up on the field this year". It looks great so far this year. You wanna know the real truth? If we regress to 3-9 next year, everyone will be pissed off again. That's what people do when their team sucks. Let's hope that the good times are truly here to stay instead of trying to prove how smart we are with smartass threads like this.

It's not underselling. It's a fact.

When you recruit at the bottom 20% of the entire FBS for 4 years...what do you think the long term ramifications of that are? Honestly what do you think happens when you do that?

2009 class > Seniors 2012
2010 class > Seniors 2013
2011 class > Seniors 2014
2012 class > Seniors 2015

So is it a surprise that senior leadership in Leach's 1st partial class all of a sudden is leading to better play? Is it a surprise that the young players Leach has recruited now are taking over leading us to more success than before.

Falk is what a RS Soph? When did he show up...2013...

And the money is what is NORMAL for coaches to be paid in the conference.

We were paying a Big Sky coach to lead us...and what did we get? Big Sky recruiting and Big Sky roster and Big Sky play of 9 wins...that's what we got. So yeah Leach is paid what he's worth. He deserves more for digging us out of the grave.

 

[Coug1990]

Given the money that we are paying Leach

And there it is for you. It is the lens on how you have thought of him throughout these years.

 

[longtimecoug]

And there it is for you. It is the lens on how you have thought of him throughout these years.

my thoughts exactly, big paycheck should mean immediate success, or we should have kept the status quo is the underlying theme of the majority of flat's posts

 

[Coug95man2]

And there it is for you. It is the lens on how you have thought of him throughout these years.

You beat me to it, 1990. Flat, you might be envious (obviously) of his pay and this might cause you to expect higher than Price/Walden/Doba/Wolff results but you do know pay sometimes is a reflection of coaching ability, sometimes it isn't, right? But my question regarding this to Flat specifically is… If you had such high expectations due to pay, you'd admit, we all saw it, you were anything but optimistic over the past few years. Why? If pay is an indicator of coaching ability, why weren't you patient, optimistic and ready for this kind of season? After all, you've continually mentioned CML's pay for years. Obviously it's coming to fruition. Did you have that little regard of CML and his time at TT? Root issue, IMHO, right here with why people react to your comments the way they do.

But might I add, Flat… Tron… So we are all excited that we are officially bowl eligible but we are arguing over HOW we got here? All know how I've fought with certain individuals on this board (haven't we all, to a certain extent). Said my peace. BTW, I was unfortunately in the Atlanta area for work this whole previous week. Coming home Sunday, in the airport, got a "Go Cougs"… Damn cool.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

And there it is for you. It is the lens on how you have thought of him throughout these years.

My lens is that we hired a coach with a reputation for making bowl games and we've provided him with great facilities and a great salary and we expect him to get us to bowl games?

That lens? Hell yes? What fan wouldn't look at him that way? I view Mike Leach as a man that we hired to do a job and do it well. We didn't hire him to finish 3-9 and we should be upset if it happens (I hope we are past that). I'm glad that he's our coach but I have no personal attachment to the guy. If he does well, I'll support him. If he sucks, I'll call him out. In time, if he is successful overall and gets us to a Rose Bowl, I may not be all that upset at a 3-9 record the following year, particularly if we lose a Heisman candidate to the NFL a year early and that's a factor in the decline. Do it three years in a row like Price did in 1998-2000 and you'll see the boo birds back out. It's the way it is.

I want to be entertained and win more often than not. FWIW, given that we are 6-3, I won't have a cross word to say about Leach if we get boatraced this weekend. I hope we win, but I'm just glad that we are doing well overall this year. Beat CU and the good times keep rolling. I hope we win the AC but I won't be breaking out pitchforks and torches if we don't. I'm a pretty simple guy to please. On the flip side, I also have no patience for excuses and incompetence and any frustration that I had with Leach was solely based on going 3-12 with a loss to an FCS team in the prior 15 games at that point in time and had nothing to do with any personal vendettas because I don't have any.

 

[MikeFingLeach]

Leach is paid market wage. Get over it.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Leach is paid market wage. Get over it.

Your are right......He is getting paid market wage. Most of us feel that for market wage, we should get a market number of wins. We are getting that this year and it's great. As I said before, we are doing well enough that a reasonable fan shouldn't be angry if we lose this weekend even if we all hope we win.

3-9 in year three was not a market result. We all know that we pissed down our legs against Rutgers and Cal last year. Anyone with a lick of football knowledge knows that when it comes to raw talent, WSU was superior to Nevada. If the team had finished 5-7 or 6-6, you would not have heard near the complaints that we heard. We didn't. If we lose a game because we were outplayed by a superior foe, it's understandable and you move on. When you start inventing new ways to lose teams that you shouldn't lose to, it's time to question what's going on.

Things are good and we are all happy with how Leach is doing. Let's hope that he continues to earn that market wage and provide us with teams that are fun to watch, not teams that lose three times as often as they win. Again, we are doing what I asked of our team before the season and only an unreasonable person wouldn't be happy with where we are.

 

[Coug1990]

My lens is that we hired a coach with a reputation for making bowl games and we've provided him with great facilities and a great salary and we expect him to get us to bowl games?

That lens? Hell yes? What fan wouldn't look at him that way? I view Mike Leach as a man that we hired to do a job and do it well. We didn't hire him to finish 3-9 and we should be upset if it happens (I hope we are past that). I'm glad that he's our coach but I have no personal attachment to the guy. If he does well, I'll support him. If he sucks, I'll call him out. In time, if he is successful overall and gets us to a Rose Bowl, I may not be all that upset at a 3-9 record the following year, particularly if we lose a Heisman candidate to the NFL a year early and that's a factor in the decline. Do it three years in a row like Price did in 1998-2000 and you'll see the boo birds back out. It's the way it is.

You guys expend an awful lot of effort trying to make this whole thing way too personal. For me, I want to be entertained and win more often than not. FWIW, given that we are 6-3, I won't have a cross word to say about Leach if we get boatraced this weekend. I hope we win, but I'm just glad that we are doing well overall this year. Beat CU and the good times keep rolling. I hope we win the AC but I won't be breaking out pitchforks and torches if we don't. I'm a pretty simple guy to please. On the flip side, I also have no patience for excuses and incompetence and any frustration that I had with Leach was solely based on going 3-12 with a loss to an FCS team in the prior 15 games at that point in time and had nothing to do with any personal vendettas because I don't have any.

Leach was hired to clean up a mess. Wulff was worse than most on here and other places even know or believe. No, we did not hire Leach to go 3-9. That was a result of what he inherited. You are upset with 3-9. But seriously, if a baby poops it's diaper, do you rant against he baby? No, it is what you expect.

Most of all, it has been proven again by Leach finally getting his program in place and we are seeing what a lot of us have been saying for years.

 

[Coug95man2]

But hey 2.75 million that will immediately change and fix all that right away


I get what you are saying 95, but these guys deserve every single shred of it. I didn't post much until they kept spouting their stupidity over and over and I was like alright...I know these fools are wrong, hopefully if I explain it in a reasonable manner they will listen.

So I explained the history....and showed how 3-9 seasons were normal for even the most successful coaches in WSU history... they didn't want to listen.

So I explained the recruiting and made charts....they didn't want to listen.

I showed them other coaches in similar situations and the time tables that it took for rebuilds...they didn't want to listen

So basically my viciousness and insatiable slamming of them now is purely grown out of their own stubbornness. Now they look stupid every single week, and I will gloat and gloat and gloat and gloat and gloat over and over and over and over and over again because they didn't want to listen...they didn't want to learn...so the punishment for their obnoxiousness will be the equally consistent shredding of them completely...forever.

If you can't do the time....then don't do the crime.

They might deserve it, but I don't. And having thread after thread, post after post, other posters out there unwilling to join, those kind so things… Realize WE don't deserve it. Let them be petty, but those of us that looked at stats, saw what we all did (I'll never forget the whole thread that stats are worthless)… we all know we were/are right. Proof is in the pudding and at this juncture, this season is the proof!

We can be bigger than they are… That's all I'm saying. EVERYONE knows what these guys have said and their stances. You don't have to continually call them out. And by not calling them out, make the board a better place.

 

[Coug1990]

Anyone with a lick of football knowledge knows that when it comes to raw talent, WSU was superior to Nevada.

Are you sure about this?

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Are you sure about this?

Ummmmm.....yeah. I feel confident that top to bottom, WSU had more talent than Nevada last year. We choked that game away because we couldn't make field goals in the third quarter and just didn't play with the passion that they did. If you look at recruiting, WSU is consistently far above Nevada and when you look at the guys on the field last year, that was the case then. From an recruiting rankings viewpoint, offers, awards and all that, WSU has better athletes than them. Our team as a whole and its execution? That was a different story.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Leach was hired to clean up a mess. Wulff was worse than most on here and other places even know or believe. No, we did not hire Leach to go 3-9. That was a result of what he inherited. You are upset with 3-9. But seriously, if a baby poops it's diaper, do you rant against he baby? No, it is what you expect. That you seriously thought that Wulff left Leach with enough football players to not go 3-9 is what gets me. Your expectations were way out of wack. It has been proven time and time again by many on these boards and other places. Yet, you chose not to listen and still argue your illogical points.

Most of all, it has been proven again by Leach finally getting his program in place and we are seeing what a lot of us have been saying for years.

When you look at my reference to 3-9 above, it's with regards 2014....not 2012. 3-9 in 2014 was pathetic. It came down to lack of execution overall and a failure to recruit a competent kicker. It doesn't take a dozen starts to figure out how to read defenses as you get ready to kick an oblate spheroid between two vertical sticks.

 

[Coug95man2]

Ummmmm.....yeah. I feel confident that top to bottom, WSU had more talent than Nevada last year. We choked that game away because we couldn't make field goals in the third quarter and just didn't play with the passion that they did. If you look at recruiting, WSU is consistently far above Nevada and when you look at the guys on the field last year, that was the case then. From an recruiting rankings viewpoint, offers, awards and all that, WSU has better athletes than them. Our team as a whole and its execution? That was a different story.

I think he was asking, "Are you sure people with a lick of sense knew this?". Because at the time, there were people here that say they have a lick of sense, but were sure down on CML, down on the program.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

I think he was asking, "Are you sure people with a lick of sense knew this?". Because at the time, there were people here that say they have a lick of sense, but were sure down on CML, down on the program.

Too often, people judge "talent" based on the scoreboard and not on the actual skills of the individual athletes. As a team, we played like we had lower level MWC talent at times last year. It's easy to look bad when things aren't going well. Just to pull a blast from the past, I doubt that many WSU fans really thought that Chris Ivory would still be in the NFL in 2015 based on what he did at WSU, but he's still pulling down that NFL paycheck.

 

[CougPatrol]

Comparing Leach to Walden isn't fair to either of them. Leach is a much better coach; one of the greatest offensive minds of the past 20 years. It's no comparison.

The Walden era is one of my favorites of all time. None of the coaches after him (Erickson, Price, Doba, Wulff, Leach) faced the challenges that Walden did. Hell, we weren't even playing our big games in Pullman when Walden took over. Just imagine how difficult it was to recruit to Pullman back then. UW was a National program. Despite all of the challenges, Walden engineered some of the greatest upsets and until recently, some of the best WSU teams of all time. He may have only led us to 1 bowl game, but he deserves credit for another "bowl caliber" team, but there weren't the tie ins that there are today.

I know a lot of younger fans don't like Walden because of what he's become as a mouthy old man, but like my Grandfather in his twilight, I don't choose to remember that Jim Walden. What I remember is the best underdog coach in school history. No WSU coach got his teams to play above their heads more than Walden, especially in the Apple Cup. For me, I don't think it's a stretch to say that all of our team accomplishments in the 90's and 00's wouldn't have happened had it not been for the Walden years. He energized our fan base with those legendary Apple Cup wins, and sandwiched a couple of teams that were good enough to win the conference title had a couple of bounces gone our way.