Mike Leach

Beej1953 said:
Hopefully they’ll grant him a waiver and induct him into CFB HOF. They’ve got a stupid rule that coaches have to have at least a .600 winning percentage. His was .596.
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Doesn't make sense to me to have a rule like that and then grant exceptions. Why have the rule in first place if you're going to grant exceptions based on public sentiment? That's counter to the whole point of having the rule, which is supposed to bring objectivity to an otherwise subjective process.

That said, I think it's a really dumb rule and would be in favor of using this as an opportunity to abolish it.
 
You know, if you took GOL's body of work and subtracted his first partial IHC year of 0-3 and his last partial season when he retired at 0-8, plus the first season (0-11) after he took over the helm of a horrendous UCF program, GOL, for 17 of those 18 middle years posted a W/L of 133-79 (.627). The exceptions can be made in many ways. Either have the rule and use it as a guide, or don't and treat each subjectively, but just pick one and go with it.
 
andrew said:
Doesn't make sense to me to have a rule like that and then grant exceptions. Why have the rule in first place if you're going to grant exceptions based on public sentiment? That's counter to the whole point of having the rule, which is supposed to bring objectivity to an otherwise subjective process.

That said, I think it's a really dumb rule and would be in favor of using this as an opportunity to abolish it.
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They should make modifications. You'd think death would be a good reason for a modification. Who is to say Leach wouldn't have hit .600 at some point? There should be intangibles. The man literally changed the landscape of CFB with his offense. It fits the concept of the type of people who should be in the Hall. Stats don't measure context, and that's a shame.
 
77GTFan said:
There are plenty who don’t want to be memorable characters. There are many who want to be memorable characters, try too hard, and are just annoying. There are only a few authentic characters who are entertaining and memorable. Mike Leach was one of the few.
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Which category does this fall under?

 
andrew said:
Doesn't make sense to me to have a rule like that and then grant exceptions. Why have the rule in first place if you're going to grant exceptions based on public sentiment? That's counter to the whole point of having the rule, which is supposed to bring objectivity to an otherwise subjective process.

That said, I think it's a really dumb rule and would be in favor of using this as an opportunity to abolish it.
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His entire record is based on coaching historically under performing teams in P5 conferences. That illustrates the absurdity of this rule.
 
For some perspective, if a coach went 7-5 every year and won 60% of their bowl appearances they would have 0.584 win percentage. Those wouldn't seem to be close to HoF numbers.
 
ee8384 said:
For some perspective, if a coach went 7-5 every year and won 60% of their bowl appearances they would have 0.584 win percentage. Those wouldn't seem to be close to HoF numbers.
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I would agree. A coach that can go 7-5 year in and year out is statistically difficult to do. Hence, .600 weeds out the goods from the greats for the most part, but it's impossible for it to be an exact science. Excluding intangibles and other factors in a body of work is problematic and keeps some great coaches out of the HOF like Erk Russell. If Cooperstown can look at a body of work and have intangibles like drug use exclude folks from the Hall, then it really shouldn't be that hard to do at the collegiate level.
 
FWIW, I think Mike Leach has made the HoF of life. There are too many characters such as him in the history of college football that have been, and will be, left out if the minimum metric for induction is a winning percentage. Dumb criteria.

Record books are for numbers. HoF "should" be for impact. I realize that makes it more subjective and potentially contentious to assess, but maybe that says more about HoF's than anything. They are kind of stupid. Mike Leach is in the hall of fame of life and he happened to be a pretty big deal in college football too. No question about it.
 
ee8384 said:
For some perspective, if a coach went 7-5 every year and won 60% of their bowl appearances they would have 0.584 win percentage. Those wouldn't seem to be close to HoF numbers.
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There are some notable coaches in the HOF with sub-.600 records. None since the '90's though.

One of them is our own Coach William Alexander (.580).

Some others that might be recognizable...Jerry Claiborne (.591), Carmen Cozza (.599), Hayden Fry (.564), Frank Howard (.580), John Ralston (.544, came out of retirement after induction to go 11-34 at San Jose State :facepalm: ), George Welsh (.588), Bill Yeoman (.594).

So, a case can be made.
 
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Buzzilla said:
FWIW, I think Mike Leach has made the HoF of life. There are too many characters such as him in the history of college football that have been, and will be, left out if the minimum metric for induction is a winning percentage. Dumb criteria.

Record books are for numbers. HoF "should" be for impact. I realize that makes it more subjective and potentially contentious to assess, but maybe that says more about HoF's than anything. They are kind of stupid. Mike Leach is in the hall of fame of life and he happened to be a pretty big deal in college football too. No question about it.
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Champion of Life (TM)
 
madRazor said:
Champion of Life (TM)
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Tennessee Life Champions.png
 
BrentwoodJacket said:
His entire record is based on coaching historically under performing teams in P5 conferences. That illustrates the absurdity of this rule.
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You’d think they’d find a way to factor in level of competition. A .596 winning percentage in mostly P5 conferences beats the crap out of a .700 winning percentage in something like the AAC or MAC.
 
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