Mississippi State Football: 3 reasons Mike Leach will turn program around

2. Air Raid offense

Mike Leach learned the Air Raid from Hal Mumme first at Valdosta State, then refined the system at Kentucky in the mid-1990s. When you coach somewhere like Mississippi State — small school with limited resources to recruit — you have to be a bit unique. The Air Raid is an offense that puts up numbers, points and doesn’t take four and five-star recruits to execute well.

Leach has never been known as a big-time recruiter. The reason for that is that he’s never coached anywhere that fans cared deeply about recruiting.

Leach wants to get his kind player. He doesn’t need a quarterback with an arm like Trevor Lawrence, rather he needs a quarterback with two attributes. First, he needs a guy that can scan and read the entire field. Second, he needs a quarterback that has just enough arm to get it there. He wants a running back that can catch and block in pass protection. He doesn’t necessarily need a freakish wide receiver. He needs a receiver with good hands and the ability to find soft spots in zone coverage.

The secret sauce for Leach and coaching in the south is simple. He has access to better players than he ever did in Pullman. He might still recruit and develop two and three-star players, but they will be better than the ones he recruited at Washington State.