Mike Leach has to be the hire

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Block M

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The program needs a jolt; a name that will bring some notoriety; and it has to be someone with a track record (not just a couple years) of success. Also has to be a guy who graduates players.

Leach fills all these criteria. Would the James incident hurt his ability to recruit? A legitimate question, but I think its behind him and he's learned a lesson. I hope.
 

Block M said:
The program needs a jolt; a name that will bring some notoriety; and it has to be someone with a track record (not just a couple years) of success. Also has to be a guy who graduates players.

Leach fills all these criteria. Would the James incident hurt his ability to recruit? A legitimate question, but I think its behind him and he's learned a lesson. I hope.
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I think we all agree that Leach is the top candidate and is begging to get back into college football. Meaning it is a no brainer.

However, we also all know Maturi is not going to take a flyer on a guy with a sketchy background and currently involved in a lawsuit.
 

He ain't coming here. Unfortunately all this rampant fervor in favor of Leach will probably only serve to damage whatever coach we actually end up with.
 

Gopher07 said:
He ain't coming here. Unfortunately all this rampant fervor in favor of Leach will probably only serve to damage whatever coach we actually end up with.
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I can live with that. My feeling is that there is a 99% chance Maturi hires some POS that I will be sending him a nasty email about anyways. Something tells me it will be Fedora-esq.
 

Another Leach thread, so I'll post the same thing again. Maturi and the search firm are responsible for doing their due diligence on every candidate. We know about the James incident and the suits, but there might be much more out there that we have absolutely no knowledge of. What if they talked to many professional who know Leach and they were urged to stay far, far away? Do we hire someone everyone warns you not to? Why aren't the other schools with openings running after him?
 


Duluthguy said:
Another Leach thread, so I'll post the same thing again. Maturi and the search firm are responsible for doing their due diligence on every candidate. We know about the James incident and the suits, but there might be much more out there that we have absolutely no knowledge of. What if they talked to many professional who know Leach and they were urged to stay far, far away? Do we hire someone everyone warns you not to? Why aren't the other schools with openings running after him?
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Due diligence would be talking to the guy to get his side of the story.
 

His side of the story about what? I'm not talking about the James incident. Let's say that never happened. If you talked to a lot of people in the profession and they warned you that Leach was potential trouble in one way or another, you'd stay away from him. If the Leach incident is all there is and everyone says he's a quality guy, then I'd say go for him. Unfortunately, we'll never know what the research on Leach revealed, and as fans, we know very, very little.
 

I thought Gopherhole decided coaches with a mostly southern resume and pass happy offenses were incapable of being succesful in the bleak, bitter winds of Minnesota?
 

I think it's time for the pro-Leach fans to restart the mass email Maturi campaign again and show him the star trib's poll number...he needs to know how excited this fan base would get
 



Duluthguy said:
His side of the story about what? I'm not talking about the James incident. Let's say that never happened. If you talked to a lot of people in the profession and they warned you that Leach was potential trouble in one way or another, you'd stay away from him. If the Leach incident is all there is and everyone says he's a quality guy, then I'd say go for him. Unfortunately, we'll never know what the research on Leach revealed, and as fans, we know very, very little.
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If that didn't happen he is not available because he is coahing in the B12 Championship game this w/e. Rumors are he is difficult to work with, So what? If he performs, he performs, you don't need to have him to the AD's house for parties or anything.
 

Gophfan22 said:
I think it's time for the pro-Leach fans to restart the mass email Maturi campaign again and show him the star trib's poll number...he needs to know how excited this fan base would get
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Its a matter of timing. When we were leading that campaign people still thought that harbough would be beating down our door. I'm afraid this is too little, too late.
 

Duluthguy said:
Another Leach thread..... What if they talked to many professional who know Leach and they were urged to stay far, far away? Do we hire someone everyone warns you not to? Why aren't the other schools with openings running after him?
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Those are good points.

1) Maturi wants to make a "safe" hire. Unfortunately, the "safe" hire might bring us Brewster2. While there may be much more to the story (or word on the street), the fact remains that Leach is stirring up grass-roots support from the fan-base. If he had skeletons in his closet, do you think he'd pursue this so agressively?
2) The 2006 Insight Bowl incident probably has some truth to it, but again, Mr. Leach got the job done the next day - Mason did not.
3) He is not pursing other schools (with the exception of Miami).

I said this before, but I'll say it again, we could hire Leach and limit our liability if Maturi did the following:

1) A specific and punitive conduct clause in his contract.
2) A separate insurance policy that would limit the U's liability if any incidents happened
3) Maturi eating crow at the news conference announcing him as coach saying, we researched the allegations and have found nothing that would warrant the university from hiring Mr. Leach. We as a university believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
4) We will not comment on any further allegations about Mr. Leach's past.
 

Do you think he's be pursuing this so aggressively if he didn't have skeletons in the closet?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have Leach. I'm just saying we'll probably never know all of the reasons why he wasn't considered.
 



Nothing is in the past.

Would the James incident hurt his ability to recruit?

Yes it would because every single school recruiting against us for a player is going to remind that kid that the great storage at TCF Bank stadium might have their name on it. Leach's actions will never be in the past because our opponents or rather his opponents will not allow them to be in the past. Leach's best chance to ever coach is in the Pro ranks because it will be held over his head forever.
 

Duluthguy said:
Do you think he's be pursuing this so aggressively if he didn't have skeletons in the closet?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have Leach. I'm just saying we'll probably never know all of the reasons why he wasn't considered.
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True. But again, a clause in his contract about anything felony related or whatever, could bring that to a head.

Leach ticked off the wrong dad in a powerful position. This has happened to coaches throughout history (see the Bowden's history).
 

What is the scenario if we don't have our coach by this time next week?
 


I have never been involved in recruiting in any way. But I would question how effective a recruiter would be if he came into your home and instead of saying how great his program was he started telling stories from the past about the coach from a rival school.

That would be a major turn-off to me. But then they are dealing with 17-18 year old kids too so you never know.
 

If you're recruiting against Leach you don't have to say anything about Leach's past. Just ask the kid to leave the room and then write his dad a six figure check.
 

Send e-mails to Maturi! Tell him if he doesn't hire Leach (who wants the job), then he better get a proven BCS winning coach like Bellotti.
 

RodentInHawkHell said:
If you're recruiting against Leach you don't have to say anything about Leach's past. Just ask the kid to leave the room and then write his dad a six figure check.
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HAHA! Nice post
 

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