This whole thing is about a booster that Leach rubbed the wrong way. Instead of winning football games, the booster had rather go to parties and introduce the head football coach of Texas Tech as his personal friend. He (the booster) has been edging to get Leach fired for awhile, and has a close connection to the chancellor and the a.d. The James incident is just the vechicle that the group is using to force Leach out.
As far as the reaction in Texas is concerned, I would say that just about everyone down here, especially Red Radier fans, are in a state of suspended disbelief. Everyone that I have talked to are in unanimous opinion that Leach is getting the shaft and that Texas Tech is going to pay dearly (in terms of program momentum) for forcing Leach out.
On a personal note, I actually got to sit down and talk with Leach for about two-and-half hours a couple of weeks ago. I am still not sure what he was doing in New Braunfels (a long way from Lubbock), but he, his wife, and another couple came into the bar that I frequent. As it was a Sunday night and not very crowded, Leach asked if me and my friend would like to join their group. I tried to keep myself from talking too much about football, but he seemed not to mind talking about it. One of the most intersting things he said (which may be related to the James incident) is that the biggest difference between Texas Tech and and the Longhorns is the gap in talent level between the second- and third-stringers. His biggest difficulty, he said, was that he had to some way convince his starters that he would bench them, when, in reality, there is no way he could afford to take them out of the game.
Someone also asked him what his favorite NFL team was. Interestingly, he said that he did not really have a favorite team, but that he followed NFL schemes. He said that he was a fan of whatever coaches and coordinators that were innovative and bringing something new to the table. In that part of the conversation, I could tell that he loves football, he loves the chess-match aspect of the game, and is very confident in his ability (not in a conceded way) to be able to out-manuver the guy on the other sideline.
We aslo talked some about recruiting, the Crabtree contract negotiations, politics, ghosts, electricity, etc... All-in-all, Leach is exactly what you see on tv. He is very smart and does not hold back his opinions. In the end, the Gophers would be very lucky to have Leach. It would be a tremendous boost to the program (having a coach that actually knows what he is doing on the side-lines) and I have no doubt that we would finally make it back to the Rose Bowl under his leadership. Unfortunately, Maturi would never have the guts to hire him. Also, quite sadly, I question whether or not Leach would be a good fit in the 'Minnesota-nice' culture.
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