Mike Leach

[CodyPoke]

Here are the highpoints from a local newspaper story about Mike Leach, who played baseball and football track at Cody High School. Leach says he was not particularily good in football, but did excel at track and field. He began coaching as a baseball tutor in high school.

WSU finished with an 8-4 season record, their first winning season since 2003, beating Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona, Arizona State and UCLA. They play in the Sun bowl - good thing they did not give up on him after 2 or 3 years! Although this is year 4 for him there, he is quoted as saying we're a team of freshmen and sophomores. He was named Pac-12 coach of the year. His critics "felt we were going to win two games all season".

Record
2012 3-9
2013 6-7
2014 3-9
2015 8-4

 

[Coeur d' Alene]

He took the cougs from so unbelievably not talented for a PAC team to this. And this wasn't a fluke season. They got and developed talent and beat Oregon. Missed a kick to beat Stanford, and lost to Washington without the guy who played they whole season at qb.

Great hire for wazzu and great job getting him extended.

 

[nwpoke]

And the story here isn't so much that a "wyo boy done good", which is certainly worth noting. It's how he did it. Four years of increasingly solid recruits, such that he always had a young team on the field. He fired a good defensive coach because he wasn't producing. Plenty of losses, but Coug teams that were increasingly competitive.

Eight miles down the road, there's an Idaho team that's taken even longer to reach the cusp of success. They were bowl eligible had they not given up 2 or 3 4th quarter leads this last season.

I'd like to think our recruiting is on par with the bottom half of the PAC, and certainly above what ever conference the Vandals are in now. Hard to say, especially with yet another season coming up with ??? at QB, issues on the D-line and inexperience everywhere but running back. Ever the optimist, I expect progress to about .500 ball this fall. At the very least I expect some competitiveness and fire out of our guys.

 

[MrTitleist]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/BruceFeldmanCFB/status/684408971998855168[/tweet]

 

[ragtimejoe1]

4 years is the litmus test; it shouldn't take longer than that to start seeing success (7+ win seasons).

Regarding coaching staffs, IMO, this has been the second largest contributor to our failure at WYO. We focus 100% on the head man and do not give nearly enough attention or resources for the head man to put together a top notch staff.

IMO, coaching staff salaries and recruiting budgets would go farther in terms of success and return on investment than just about anything else we can do.

 

[J-Rod]

Well, he also runs a high-powered passing system that allows them to have a chance any given year. If he tried to play pro style football with all those Pac-12 schools they would have lost to everyone.

I get the point here, just saying Bohl is climbing a steeper mountain.

 

[JimmyDimes]

The only reason I would think Bohl has a steeper mountain is because of how thin this team was this past year and the work it will take to build up a couple positions. But, Bohl ran the same style, at a lesser school, and has very good success. I'm not talking about his 3 championships in a row....I'm talking 7-3 on the road vs FBS teams.

Pretty interesting box score with the Cougs this year.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/gametracker/recap/NCAAF_20150919_WYO@WASHST" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[stymeman]

got to see it 1st hand last year at the Wazzu game, people around the stadium were calling for his head against us, until they rolled us late, but if it wouldn't work out at Wazzu I'd love to give him a shot to come to Wyo if Bohl can't get it done, we'll see but his open up the field and us returning to a Reciever U would be worth a watch

 

[ragtimejoe1]

The only reason I would think Bohl has a steeper mountain

Let's see: SDSU, BSU, USU, AF, UNM, NV vs. Stanford, Oregon, USC, Utah, UCLA, Cal

Yep, Bohl's mountain looks way steeper.

 

[MrTitleist]

The only reason I would think Bohl has a steeper mountain

Let's see: SDSU, BSU, USU, AF, UNM, NV vs. Stanford, Oregon, USC, Utah, UCLA, Cal

Yep, Bohl's mountain looks way steeper.

Compare Bohl's resources with Leach's resources.. Wazzu is FAR better off financially.

 

[LanderPoke]

The only reason I would think Bohl has a steeper mountain

Let's see: SDSU, BSU, USU, AF, UNM, NV vs. Stanford, Oregon, USC, Utah, UCLA, Cal

Yep, Bohl's mountain looks way steeper.

It's relative. Leach has more resources to work with being in the PAC. Bohl's mountain is just as steep.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Relative to their peers? You guys need to go check out the Pac12 budgets and the gaps.

Example: WSU football just over $16 million football expenses

Oregon is just over 20 million
Stanford is just over 20 million
USC is over 30 million
UCLA is over 26 million
Cal is over 21 million
etc.

There is even a larger gap in revenues. This is not to mention substantial increases in football budgets at WSU since 2011 (in other words, he used to have it even worse).

 

[Coeur d' Alene]

And the story here isn't so much that a "wyo boy done good", which is certainly worth noting. It's how he did it. Four years of increasingly solid recruits, such that he always had a young team on the field. He fired a good defensive coach because he wasn't producing. Plenty of losses, but Coug teams that were increasingly competitive.

Eight miles down the road, there's an Idaho team that's taken even longer to reach the cusp of success. They were bowl eligible had they not given up 2 or 3 4th quarter leads this last season.

I'd like to think our recruiting is on par with the bottom half of the PAC, and certainly above what ever conference the Vandals are in now. Hard to say, especially with yet another season coming up with ??? at QB, issues on the D-line and inexperience everywhere but running back. Ever the optimist, I expect progress to about .500 ball this fall. At the very least I expect some competitiveness and fire out of our guys.

You should stop liking to think that wyomings recruiting is on par with the bottom half of the PAC.

 

[HiCountryCowboy]

And the story here isn't so much that a "wyo boy done good", which is certainly worth noting. It's how he did it. Four years of increasingly solid recruits, such that he always had a young team on the field. He fired a good defensive coach because he wasn't producing. Plenty of losses, but Coug teams that were increasingly competitive.

Eight miles down the road, there's an Idaho team that's taken even longer to reach the cusp of success. They were bowl eligible had they not given up 2 or 3 4th quarter leads this last season.

I'd like to think our recruiting is on par with the bottom half of the PAC, and certainly above what ever conference the Vandals are in now. Hard to say, especially with yet another season coming up with ??? at QB, issues on the D-line and inexperience everywhere but running back. Ever the optimist, I expect progress to about .500 ball this fall. At the very least I expect some competitiveness and fire out of our guys.

You should stop liking to think that wyomings recruiting is on par with the bottom half of the PAC.

Wow, exactly! Apologies to the original poster, but we're NOT EVEN CLOSE to the bottom half of the P12.

 

[J-Rod]

Wow, exactly! Apologies to the original poster, but we're NOT EVEN CLOSE to the bottom half of the P12.

Yeah, bottom of the Pac-12 is still nabbing a 4-Star recruit or two. Wyo is struggling to put together complete classes with recruits who have an FBS offer. It's getting better, but far away from Pac-12 caliber.

 

[BeaverPoke]

Wyomings recruiting being on par with the bottom half of the Pac12 is so wrong it's not even funny.

According to ESPN, last year, Washington was the 6th ranked Pac12 recruiting class last season, which came in at 28th best in the country.
So the bottom half of the Pac12, 7th-12th all came in 39th, 53rd, 54th, 56th, 67th, and 68th.
Those bottom half recruiting classes average at 56.167, or we can just call that 56th. Which is Utah.
The TOP recruiting class in the Mountain West came in and 69th. It was Boise State.
The WORST recruiting class in the Pac12 came in above the BEST recruiting class in the Mountain West.
ESPN only shows the top 75, and unfortunately Wyoming, nor any other MW teams were in the Top 75.

2014, the Ducks came in at 6th best in the Pac12 at 27th. 7th-12th were 45th, 46th, 61st, 64th, 67th, and 71st.
Those bottom 6 average out at 59th best which was Iowa State.
Boise State, again the BEST Mountain West class came in below the WORST Pac12 class at 72nd. SDSU was 74th.
2014 the MWC had 2 in the Top 75.

2013 Arizona had the 6th best Pac12 class at 39th. The 7th-12th Pac12 teams were 40th, 42nd, 46th, 48th, 58th, and 67th.
Those bottom 6 average out at 50.167 which just behind Purdue and ahead of Northwestern.
Boise State had the top MW class at 53rd, this time ahead of 2 MWC schools (Wazzu and Colorado).
Hawaii, SDSU, and Fresno St all made the Top 75 classes at 68th, 69th, and 70th.

Wyoming was not in the Top 75 any of the 3 years.
I do realize stars don't mean everything, and there are some teams from these years that had very poorly ranked recruiting classes that won a lot of football games.
And yes, recruiting rankings will generally differ from site to site (ESPN, Yahoo, Scout, Rivals, etc.) but they do lay out a good blue print of how well schools are doing at attracting certain players.

There may not be a huge difference between the 1st and 2nd ranked teams, or the 69th and 70th ranked teams, but there is a world of difference between a top ranked team and a team that never makes the Top 75 cut.

With all of that said, Wyoming has failed to reach the Top 75 according to ESPN, and I would guess our recruiting classes are ranked towards the 110-120 range, and on good years possibly cracking the Top 100.

The bottom half of the Pac12 is so much further ahead of Wyoming in terms of recruiting it isn't even funny.
The bottom half of the Pac12 is closer to the top half of the Pac12, than Wyoming is to the Top of the MWC, or the bottom of the Pac12.

http://insider.espn.go.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/classrankings?class=2015" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here is a link to the recruiting rankings.

 

[nwpoke]

Excuse my poorly researched irrational exuberance. It's brought on by the occasional really good team over the years. I expect our guys to play well, at least be competitive. It's not the same as talent.

Meanwhile I expect the best of any conference wyo is in to be as good as AZ and ASU, and then utah when they jumped to the pac.

My point was that Leach has had 4 years to win a bowl after years of decline and bad football. Wsu had a pretty good offense for 3 of them.

The vandals were one of the worst teams for how many years? They played well last fall.

For better or worse, these are easy comparisons, and they hint at what we might expect next year and the year after.

 

[BeaverPoke]

I don't know man, going 4-8 in one of the worst conferences in the country isn't giving me much hope Idaho is about to turn it around.
Sure, it's better than the 1 win per year they have been getting, but one random season with 4 wins isn't really indicating that they are projecting up.

 

[nwpoke]

And how many 4th quarter leads did the vandals give up? I would say idaho is at the cusp of being good in their league. 4 wins and competent play (in the sun belt?) is a vast improvement from recent years. One year they didn't win a game. We had wyo fans this year predicting no wins.

How long will we give bohl for a return to decency? Perhaps a worthless comparison, but yr 3 is coming up. If bohl and staff compare, we should see significant improvement.

 

[J-Rod]

Idaho loaded up on JC players like crazy and it got them 4 wins. They might fight for a bowl game next year, but overloading with JC players eventually bites you in the ass. The might go 0-12 in 2017.

They'll probably be in the Big Sky next year anyway. Sun Belt won't extend their inclusion passed this trial period.