Washington State Football: 3 possible landing spots for Mike Leach

Washington State football’s Mike Leach will have plenty of offers at the end of the 2017 season. Here are possible landing options for Leach in 2018.

The Washington State Cougars are have gone from obscurity to a top 25 ranking and a shot at the Pac 12 North title in 2017. When Mike Leach arrived in Pullman, Washington the Cougars had fallen on “Hard Times” as Dusty Rhodes once so aptly put it.

It was 2012 and Washington State was coming off a 4-8 season which would’ve been their high point during that run. The last Cougars winning season would have been the 2003 season under Bill Doba. Before that the only coach with consistent success had been Mike Price who had three double-digit winning seasons as the head man of the Cougs and a successful 1988 season that Dennis Erickson parlayed into the Miami Hurricanes head job in 1989.

Mike Leach has turned Wazzu around not only with his air raid record setting offense that made Luke Falk a household name, but also through the hiring of Alex Grinch. His first defensive coordinator position is at Washington State and he’s currently putting out the nation’s No. 17 defense on the field. That’s an unthinkable turnaround for a defense that was ranked in the 100s of the S&P+ rankings by Bill C when Leach arrived in 2012. The Cougs themselves were the 102nd ranked team in Bill C’s rankings back in 2011 when Paul Wulff was fired for Leach.

The Cougars are currently on a bye week and looking the Washington Huskies, their rival, square in the face for an Apple Cup showdown on Nov. 25. If Washington State wins, they head to the Pac-12 title game against the USC Trojans. A perennial underdog like Leach would love to upset the Trojans and push his way into a major bowl on his way out of Pullman.

Why would Leach leave? Well first the athletic director that hired him is in Lincoln, Neb., and the pirate may feel he needs a bit more protection than that which a new athletic director may or may not provide. But also he has no ties to Washington State, or even the Pacific Northwest, per se.

Leach is a BYU grad and could take over the Cougars if they fire their coach after a down year, but he hails from Cody, Wyo., and has coached all over the country including Kentucky, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma to name a few.

Here are my top three landing spots for Mike Leach if he so chooses to chase the money in 2018.