Mike Leach gives incredible description of Auburn win: 'We're tough and dumb'
The Mississippi State Bulldogs rallied to pull off an overtime victory over the Auburn Tigers on Saturday night after initially squandering a 24-6 halftime lead. After the buzzer sounded on the 39-33 victory, Mike Leach shared a pretty incredible description of the performance in which he called his team “tough and dumb.”
“I guess you could say we’re tough and dumb,” Leach said in his post-game press conference. “We are tough though, so that part’s good. We’ve got to learn to enjoy prosperity a little more. How do you enjoy it? You do all the little things that got you there in the first place.”
The former Washington State skipper went on to share a more colorful analogy for what he saw from his offense.
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“Instead of playing hard and getting a first down, you want to sit behind a shade tree with a fish sandwich, a lemonade and your fat little girlfriend, and that’s what we’re shooting for way too often,” Leach said. “When can we relax, making judgments on plays, that bit us pretty hard. It created some obstacles we had to fight through.”
Overall, the Pirate was happy to get the win, no matter how ugly, which moved the Bulldogs to 6-3 on the year.
“It was good at the end and good at the beginning. In between, just bounced on and off the rails. The defense, I thought, kept us in it,” Leach said. “We helped ourselves offensively, getting back in it. Wins are hard no matter who you are; sometimes there are games like that.
“The toughest teams stick through it, battles and wins. I did feel like that was the case. We have some things to address. You can’t start fast and fall asleep at the wheel in the middle, at least it’s not in your best interest by any stretch.”
Leach folds up receivers’ chairs versus Auburn
Mike Leach has some extremely high standards for his players, which he demonstrated once again on Saturday. Last week, he said he was worried his wide receivers’ kids would have T-Rex arms because they were so bad at catching the football.
Leach was once again displeased with the play of his wide receivers. So, he decided to fold up their chairs on the sidelines, because he felt they didn’t deserve to sit.
Leach’s quarterback, Will Rogers, broke two of Dak Prescott’s records on Saturday night. Not only did Rogers break Prescott’s all-time passing touchdown record, but he also broke his career passing yardage record.
Rogers completed 42 of his 59 passing attempts for 357 yards while tossing in three touchdowns and one interception.
Rara Thomas hauled in six catches for 84 receiving yards and two touchdowns in the winning effort for the Bulldogs. He led all Mississippi State receivers on Saturday night.
On3’s Wade Peery contributed to this report.