Mike Leach shares memories of Kentucky, respect for Mark Stoops
This weekend, Mike Leach will return to Kentucky for the second time as the head coach at Mississippi State. The Air Raid protege was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Hal Mumme at Kentucky from 1997-98 and still has fond memories of his time in Lexington. Yesterday, he shared a few during his weekly press conference.
“Great atmosphere, you know, great atmosphere. Packed tailgate outside there that starts about on Thursday. As I walked from my office, which was under the stadium at that time, you’d walk right through the tailgate section, which was awesome and it was easy to get distracted from time to time. It’s just a great place to have a game.”
There’s a story there about Leach crashing some tailgates (if you have one, please share it with the group). He also recalled the Keeneland/Kentucky Football daily double, which is in play again this weekend.
“The fans always loved it where — of course, I was at Kentucky at the time, so I didn’t give it a lot of thought — but the opposing fans would come in, and they’d go to Keeneland during the day, which is the horse races and then maybe the most beautiful horse race track in the country. They’d go to that and then go to the game that night.”
Leach: The Stoopses are the “First Family of Defense”
Leach is very familiar with the Stoops family. Not only will this be his third game vs. Mark Stoops at Kentucky, he worked for his brother Bob at Oklahoma in 1999 and coached against Bob and Mike in the Big 12 as Texas Tech’s head coach from 2000-09. Yesterday, Leach called the Stoopses “one of the first families of defense.”
“I think he does a really good job,” Leach said of Mark Stoops. “I think he’s really a sharp guy and of course, I worked for his brother Bob and then went against Bob and Mike over the years there in the Big 12. They’re sharp. They’re kinda like one of the first families of defense type of deal and what makes it even tougher is anything they’re kind of having a problem with, they just get on the phone and call any two or three of their brothers and get a whole field of suggestions. And of course, Mark’s done a really good job there at Kentucky.”
Leach is 1-1 against Kentucky as Mississippi State’s coach. The Bulldogs lost at Kroger Field 24-2 in 2020 and beat the Cats 31-17 last season in Starkville. Leach noted that a lot of players from that Kentucky team are gone, but used almost every adjective for big when describing the current Cats and Will Levis.
“A portion of them have changed. Not across the board but kind of half, I guess. You know, they’re kind of big physical bruiser kind of guys, thick-wall defensive lineman type of guys. Same with the linebackers. Play aggressively on defense. Their quarterback, I mean, looks very much like a quarterback. Good at running their unit and he’s a big, statuesque guy so he does some good things.”
Sadly, recalling Kentucky’s tailgates was as wacky as Leach got yesterday. We’ll get another shot at pearls of wisdom from the Pirate tomorrow on the SEC Teleconference. Until then, enjoy his take on coffee.
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