Mike Leach makes College Football Hall of Fame ballot four years after his death

Mike Leach is one step closer to joining the College Football Hall of Fame.

Leach, who passed away in 2022, is officially on the ballot among coaches under consideration for induction into the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2027, sources told On3. 

On Monday, the National Football Foundation (NFF) will release the ballot to be voted on for induction into the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2027, a source said. The Hall of Fame inductees won’t be announced until January 2027 with the ceremony to honor the Class of 2027 in December from Las Vegas.

Last May, the NFF lowered the eligibility criteria for coaches to get into the Hall from a winning percentage of 60% to 59.5%, opening the door for Leach, who was at 59.6% at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. Leach was nominated for the Class of 2027, as required for consideration, by Mississippi State, a source said.

“He is incredibly deserving,” said Auburn athletic director John Cohen, who hired Leach at Mississippi State in 2020. “He was a college football pioneer. He had a lot of characteristics not typical of anyone, such as his creativity and sense of humor.”

Despite Leach’s uniqueness, Cohen said he hired Leach for his ability to win football games.

In Leach’s final season at Mississippi State in 2022, the Bulldogs won nine games for only the 10th time in the program’s 121-year history. 

In 21 years as a head coach, Leach went to 19 bowl games and was the winningest coach in Texas Tech history. In 10 of his 21 seasons, Leach’s “Air Raid” offense led the nation in passing yards. Leach’s quarterbacks were responsible for 10 of the 50 most productive passing yardage seasons in FBS history.

One of Leach’s quarterbacks was Tennessee coach Josh Heupel. He was recruited to Oklahoma by Leach, who was the Sooners’ offensive coordinator in 1999. Under Leach, the Sooners’ offense set six Big 12 Conference and 17 school records.

“He was an innovator of the game and obviously a big-time character,” Heupel said. “Every time you went into his office, it was an experience, like listening to the Howard Stern show.”

One of Cohen’s favorite memories was when Leach walked into his office while Cohen was on his speakerphone with his daughter Jordan, who was in her first year at Wake Forest University’s School of Law. 

“Mike asked her if she was taking Property Law and she was, so Mike immediately recited a landmark case verbatim from 80 years ago on the subject,” Cohen said.

“My daughter told me, ‘he just recited what our professor told us.’ It was amazing. Mike was a highly intelligent and creative guy. I miss him every day. He had a different way of seeing the world.”

Did he ever.

Leach was the only coach to offer Eric Morris a scholarship out of Shallowater (Texas) High School – and he did so with a magic card trick. Leach told Morris: “If this stack is red and this stack is black, you have a scholarship.” Said Morris: “I was just hoping this wasn’t a sick joke.”

It wasn’t. Morris played for Leach at Texas Tech and Leach later offered Morris his first full-time assistant coaching job at Washington State. Now 14 years later, Morris begins his first year this fall as Oklahoma State’s coach after seven seasons at Incarnate Word and North Texas.

“I owe a lot to that dude,” Morris said. “He was so eccentric, such a breath of fresh air. Everyone remembers the funny YouTube rants. He was different than any coach I’ve ever been with. 

“But a lot of people didn’t realize how tough it was to be in his program. How he challenges you mentally and physically. He ran a really tight camp. A lot of successful people have come out of his programs because he taught us so many life lessons on being resilient.”

Leach’s head coaching tree is impressive. It includes Morris, Heupel, Lincoln Riley, Sonny Dykes, Kliff Kingsbury, Dave Aranda, Sonny Cumbie, Dana Holgorsen, Neal Brown, Jeff Choate, JeMarcus Shephard, Seth Littrell, Art Briles, Ken Wilson and Ruffin McNeill.

“Looking at how many great coaches came from his tree and how many he mentored, speaks volumes on what an impact he had,” Morris said.

Morris remembers a particularly frustrating day as a player at Tech when Leach asked him: “’What’s something you accomplished in life that you’re really proud of that was easy? We’re here to accomplish hard things. They’re not supposed to be easy.’ It was the super simple way he approached (life).”

The Leach stories are legendary and lengthy: creating a fake offensive script for the 1999 Oklahoma-Texas game and leaving it on the sideline (Texas thought it was legit and fell behind 17-0 before UT figured out it was bogus); his fascination with Pirates and Native American leader Geronimo; breaking down who would win a battle of Pac-12 mascots; rating the best Halloween candy on live television after an SEC victory; and frequently providing dating advice in press conferences. He also was the first to propose a 64-team playoff, which we’ll probably get to any day now.

Like Leach loved to do – and for anyone who had the privilege of being in his orbit – we could go on and on. But we’ll add just one more Leach story. 

In 2015 when he was at Washington State, the Pac-12 media days were held at Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, Calif.

Ten minutes before Leach was scheduled to begin his required interviews, he stepped into a restroom. Fifteen minutes later, Leach was nowhere to be found. They checked the restroom and, legend has it, a back window was open, as if Leach had exited through it.

“He saw this Harry Potter tour go by that he was interested in and just went off with them,” said former Pac-12 vice president of communications Dave Hirsch.

After missing most of his interviews, Leach eventually returned to the media day events. Leach was asked about wandering off to the Harry Potter tour.

“Now my kids are going to be really jealous, in particular the Harry Potter portion of the tour,” Leach said afterward. “I do recommend you go. They have everything from Batman helmets to some cool brass knuckles that the Joker has to Catwoman outfits. Then you can go upstairs to the Harry Potter exhibit and they’ll stick a wizard hat on you and tell you what tribe you’re in. Mine was Huffle-something.”

Huffle-something? Leach was one of a kind and fittingly he’ll be the first member of the ‘Huffle-something tribe’ inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.