Coaches draw up contingency plan to divvy up Leach duties
SAN ANTONIO – Texas Tech already has put in place a plan for replacing suspended head coach Mike Leach on the sideline for the Alamo Bowl on Saturday night.
Since Leach has served as his own offensive coordinator throughout his 10-year tenure as head coach, someone new will call the plays and signal them in. Interim head coach Ruffin McNeill said inside receivers coach Lincoln Riley will be the primary man responsible for play-calling and offensive staff assistant Sonny Cumbie will do the signaling.
“Lincoln will be calling from the box,’’ McNeill said after the team’s practice Monday evening at Benson Stadium. “He has worked with Mike full-time. And Sonny Cumbie, who works hand in hand with Mike, who understands the offense probably as good as anybody, will be signaling in the plays.’’
McNeill, a charter member of Leach’s staff from 2000, was promoted to defensive coordinator five games into the 2007 season. If that was a whirlwind development, it was topped by the events of Monday, when Leach was suspended amid an allegation of player mistreatment and McNeill was told shortly after 3 p.m. that he would be interim head coach. Leach, McNeill and a few players traveled on the same commercial flights from Lubbock to Dallas and San Antonio on Monday, before Tech announced the suspension.
McNeill said he briefly touched base with Leach afterward.
“He said, ‘Just keep it going — keep practice going and get ready for a great week of practice,’ ” McNeill said.
The first practice cast McNeill into at least one unfamiliar role.
“Today, I was making sure the offense had some tempo going, too,’’ he said. “So they heard my voice down at that end a little bit. That was sort of fun, getting the chance to yell at those guys a little bit.’’
A handful of Red Raiders players were scheduled to be available to the media after the practice. But after the mid-afternoon announcement of Leach’s suspension, Tech media relations staff allowed only McNeill to do interviews.
Though the 51-year-old McNeill has been a defensive coordinator at Appalachian State, Nevada-Las Vegas and Tech, he said Saturday would be his first time to enter a game as head coach since a high-school job back in the mid-1980s.
“It’s been a while,’’ he said, “but I’ve been coordinating defenses for a long time as well as special teams. I feel very confident that I’ll be able to do a great job. I feel very confident in the people around me. The coaches that I work with are very professional. I’ve worked with those guys, some of them for 10, seven, eight years. We know each other from A to Z and Z to A, so I feel very confident in that aspect.’’
McNeill said after fighting through some ups and downs in an 8-4 regular season, he thinks the players will respond, too.
They worked out Monday for only a little more than an hour, a typical early game week workout, so there wasn’t much to go on. But McNeill said the signs were positive.
“This team has faced adversity, really all year,’’ McNeill said, “so they were probably a little shocked. But at the same time they did a good job of coming on the field and doing what I asked them to do. So I was proud of that.’’
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Thanks JAMES FAMILY. I guess thats how you teach your children to respond. Run to mommy and daddy. Be a man and take your medicine spoiled brat.
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By the way, in my 20 years of coaching, I remember having an office that WAS the electrical room. So to say this incident was cruel is insane. Having to spend a couple of hours in an electrical room with AC. The small 8 x 8 electrical closet I had as an office didn’t have AC and it was burning hot. I was glad to have a room. Grow up!
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Is Gerald Myers offering refunds for Alamo Bowl tickets? This is total B.S. If Leach is going to get run off, he should at least get to hit Myers with a salad bowl. Oh wait, that’s not cause for termination.
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Craig James was responsible for the downfall of SMU football and now he is going for Texas Tech….psst! some people!
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Set the record straight. The room was the ac room in the training area. The electrical room has to have a special key that coaches do not have. the kid was not under guard but had a trainer there to make sure that he could get water if he needed it. he was in a cool area that is condusive to a quite area in the stadium.
Never mess with a lawyer that is a coach.
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The little James boy grew up in a Little League mommy and daddy home, where he probably got what he wanted. Coach Leach you need to stay at TTU. Don’t let a spoiled brat and a mediocre AD win this one. You’re the best.
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It’s real simple. FIRE MYERS or get ready for the backlash from Tech Alum. I’m fed up with the admin trying to run the best coach this school will ever have off. Craig James is full of crap. Why not address this 10 days ago if it was so serious, nah let’s wait until bowl week to make it a distraction. What a joke. If Leach leaves I’ll turn in my Tech gear, not renew my tickets, and follow his team wherever he lands.
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We are behind you Coach Leach :-)
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please do not let the voices of true red raiders go unheard. email the administration and let them know whee your dollars will not be going if myers doesn’t go himself. kent.hance@ttu.edu, guy.bailey@ttu.edu, christina.martinez@ttu.edu she is the executive secretary for the regents. try to make it sensical, don’t sound like an idiot.
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I think we have to plan some sort of protest against the adinistration for suspending leach, just like we did during the contract negotiations….and expressour support for LEACH
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SMU gets the death penalty: Feb. 25, 1987
The history and mythology of modern college football are papered with examples of programs whose keepers and boosters flaunted NCAA rules by building quasi-professional programs with marginal student-athletes. But only one has received the NCAA’s death penalty: Southern Methodist University. The Mustangs rose to the top of the high-powered Southwest Conference in the early ’80s, riding on the back of the Pony Express backfield (Eric Dickerson and Craig James), and twice finished in the top five in the nation. At swank parties all over Texas, where football is big business, SMU alums bragged to their Longhorn and Aggie brethren. Then the bubble burst: SMU was found to have made approximately $61,000 in payments to athletes from funds provided by a booster, with the approval of university officials as high up as former — and future — Texas governor Bill Clements, who was then chairman of SMU’s board of governors. NCAA officials did not levy the penalty lightly, but, said Dan Beebe, the lead investigator on the case, “I’m not sure what else would have gotten the message across to those people.” It has been nearly two decades since the NCAA took down SMU; 16 schools have since been eligible for the death penalty, but none have received it. SMU has never recovered. “It’s like an atomic bomb,” SMU coach Phil Bennett told Sports Illustrated in 2002. “The NCAA did it once and caused devastation beyond belief, and it’s never going to be done again.”
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Let’s not forget…this is not totally about Adam James. This is about Gerald Myers who was publically humiliated during the last contract negotiation with Leach. He tried then to use the media to force Leach out. We….the alumni and students didn’t allow it. He could have handled this differently also. This is all a publicity stunt by him to discredit Mike Leach. Why else would he let him fly down to the bowl game and then announce this. Myers has no backbone. Instead of standing behind his coach he bowed to the pressure of ESPN……and oh by the way…..stuck it to Leach.
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Perfectly said ’76. Why has Myers not retired yet? He is in over his head. He has done great things for Tech, but he has proven once again that he can’t handle the PR pressures that comes with a big-time program. PR 101, you never make anything public until a full investigation has been done. That way you can support your decisions. Having a statement from a 19 year old kid and a dad (who has demonstrated he had a character problem back at SMU) as your support for suspensions……might be the most ignorant action I have seem from this AD / Board of Regents to date. When this came out yesterday I thought, ” wow…..Leach really must have done something Mangino-Like for them to take this drastic of a step.” But now that it looks like a disgruntled player was put in a dark room because of a concussion head ache…..I am speachless.
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I’m hoping that BCS/NCAA and other bowl hosters are waiting til the bottom line. I hope this doesn’t hurt Techs bowl invites over the next 5-6 years. Valero was excited about having Tech come in because of the crowd Tech carries, I really hope this is not ruined. Either way I am there to support Tech and cheer as loud as I need to.
Wreck Em Tech
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The best thing Tech Fans can do is support the team. Boycotting the game is a dumb idea.
It is hard to know what to do when all the facts are not available to us, but punishing the players by boycotting the game is really not the way to let them (and potential recruits) know how much we appreciate their work in making the Red Raiders a great team to support.
Support the team well. Unfortunately, after this fiasco, either Myers or Leach will have to go. There is not room for both of their egos around here any more.
Let’s support the team and hope that we can salvage a good future from the opportunity that this presents.
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When I went to Tech, I saw J.T. King yell at one of his players! Several years later I witnessed Jim Carlen “visibly upset” at one of his players. To the best of my recollection, neither incident resulted in a public complaint, suspension or other action by the Tech administration. Maybe they should follow prior example!
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ADAM JAMES RECENTLY REQUESTED A TRANSFER TO PLAY AT SMU. LEACH AND TTU, PER POLICY, DOES NOT RELEASE A SCHOLARSHIP TO GO PLAY FOR “ANY D1 SCHOOL IN THE STATE OF TEXAS OR BIG XII CONFERENCE SCHOOL.” WHEN HE DID NOT GET HIS RELEASE, THE FAMILY DECIDED TO GO FORWARD WITH THIS PLAN OF ACTION. FACTS, FOLKS. YOU DECIDE.
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let the truth out AJ-moderator!
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Folks, the James family will be the one getting the short end of the stick. SMU alums must be puking thinking another “James” wants to play ball there. Even if Tech could let him, go would they really want him now?
Tech Alum
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Adam, you blow it on the Heisman ( didn’t know who Gerhart was). To steal a phase, “Be fair and balance”. I smell a rat and it’s not Leach. Myers needs to go.
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I think that everyone would agree that this needed to be looked it to. Craig James is running this and running Myers. Maybe some of the money he got from SMU will be handed over to Myers. I hope this doesn’t take Tech down.
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I think lots of people are jumping to conclusions on both sides of the story. No one needs to boycott the game or the school. I don’t know the James family, but as a parent, I don’t know what I would have done. My boys probably never would have even told me if this happened to them. I probably would have spoken to the school (if I did know) about it, but this may be an extreme case of parental complaining. However, if the concussion was that serious, he probably shouldn’t even have been at workouts at all.
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It seems not too many years ago, I saw Gerald Meyers, red in the face, screaming from courtside at his players for not apparently following his instructions. He wasn’t suspended. He compiled a most creditable record at Tech. I’m sure in his many years at Tech, he encountered a number of premadonnas who did not take well to criticism. Imagine if everybody’s mommy and daddy descended upon him to fuss about the treatment of their “littleboy!”
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Just sent this to the school administration:
As a Red Raider fan and band parent I am writing to express my disappointment of how the Leach situation has been handled by the school.
Coach Leach has been treated like he is guilty, so much for innocent until proven guilty. The timming of all this is quite suspicious. It is quite evident that Adam James is not a great player. If he was, he would have gotten much more action than the likes of Alex Torres, Detron Lewis, etc.
It is quite evident this is all a product of a spoiled, primadonna non-player who has a bone to pick with the coach and has an influential father who can wave his ESPN flag to pressure you guys to do something totally selfish.
This will utterly backfire on Texas Tech and at a prime recruiting moment, the result will be devastating. If let go, Coach Leach will be a highly coveted coach and the result for Tech will be lose-lose.
Please come to your senses and issue an immediate appology to Coach Leach, the fans, the players, the students and us parents who are very proud of his accomplishments and what he has done to help this school.
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To Bo Lora — HERE HERE WELL SAID
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I am not, in any way, a Tech fan (I am an alum of Colorado–go ahead, laugh, we deserve it). That being said, I have long admired Coach Leach’s offensive genius. I am perplexed by the lock-step support that the coach is getting before the investigation is over and before all of the facts are in.
If any of you were in management of an educational institution where an employee potentially subjected a student to a dangerous circumstance, you would quickly and thoroughly investigate the allegations and take the actions that were the best for the institution. That appears to me (an admitted outsider) to be what the Tech admin appears to have been doing. Imagine the liability that the university would be facing if they failed to suspend Leech and something happened to an injured player in practice this week. Imagine the results of the lawsuit if a player suffered serious injury or death after being locked in a dark room.
It seems to me like the Tech administration is being cautious and smart.
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Crooks Crooks…oh I’m mean the Jameses, Hey I wonder if Craig paid back all the $ he stole from SMU. Oh, I forgot he must have an I’Q of under 70 NOT to know that it was wrong. Should had been indicted and served time. Empty stands next year myers if you don’t stop this sh-t now.
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Why was the player at practice and taking direction from the coach on a medical matter?
Is this the coaches fault or the AD?
ESPN’s interview of father James was a joke.
The player is a wimp- he could not get through an athletic trainer and get out if he was so uncomfortable?
I follow big time football programs and have loved TT getting competitive with real programs. This will send them back to abscurity.
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Dogface, are you kidding? How cautious is suspending a coach right before a bowl game without ALL the facts. You are an outsider and with your reasoning need to stay that way.
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Write to the administration, as have I, and voice your concerns in a gentlemanly manner—no cursing. The way Texas Tech has handled this is akin to what would happen in an elementary school, not one of higher learning. The administrators are supposed to be well educated, level-headed individuals. However, they now appear to be a bunch of dropouts who hate all things Texas Tech. Why would they accept what James’ dad said and act on it if they were as intelligent as they should be. It is so obvious that they have misstepped on this and I don’t know if they can get out of it without someone losing his/her job. I just hope Leach is the one remaining as this is definitely the cry of a marginal player and his father who believe Leach is not giving the kid enough playing time. We now hear that Adam asked for a release from his scholarship to transfer to SMU. NOT! No major university would allow that to happen. And because his request was rejected they feel the need to make unnecessary accusations just to spite Leach. It also appears that the punishment was in reality a move to HELP the James kid to get out of the sunlight so his concussion (a minor one, at that) would not become worse. I have NEVER heard of any other football player worth his salt complain like James about a concussion and try to discredit any actions by the coach to HELP him. What a pansy. i know I don’t want him on the team anymore, and I’ll bet none of the other players want him near the field ever again.
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Totally insane…
This is about power and control…not the health of Adam James.
I believe it was reported in one of the local papers that the school asked Leach write a letter apologizing for his actions. When he refused, he was suspended. That alone tells you the offense was not serious. If it were a serious offense, then you simply terminate the man. This has nothing to do with the health of the player, it is all about power and authority. The James family may have been right to complain, but the incident appears to have been hijacked and used for more devlish purposes.
It seems to me that Gerald Myers wanted to control Leach, humiliate him, make sure he knew who was the “boss”. When he refused to cooperate, he was suspened. Myers could have held firm, conducted the investigation in private, then make the appropriate decision. Slapping Leach around in public does not serve Tech’s needs. It may sothe Myers ego a bit, but if he takes down Leach, he is gone within the year.
I plan on watching the game, and hope the team performs well.
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Get ready for after the hearing. If Coach Leach gets this injunction- he will be fired. They are not gonna give him that 800000 due if he is the coach on Thursday.
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