What Is The Lesson Of The Mike Leach Saga?

So Coach Mike Leach has now responded in interviews about his dismissal by Texas Tech.  And as I start to scan the articles about what happened, I see the usual “he said, she said” different sides of the story.  We may never really find out what happened, but my question at this point is,  What is the lesson of this particular situation?  What should college football and football fans really learn from all of this?I don’t want to review the whole mess at Texas Tech.  But the net of it is that Coach Leach says that the kid was a lazy prima donna and that his dad, the ESPN commentator, was interfering with the team and trying to get his son more playing time.  The player and the father say that is ridiculous and that the coach was mistreating the player.

As I said, we will probably never know the full truth.  But again to my point.  What is the lesson?  Well, everyone will have an opinion on this one and here’s mine.

I believe that college football is on the verge of a problem.  I believe that college football is on the verge of being a victim of it’s own success.  College football appears to riding a high of success and more programs (look at TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati) are starting to compete with the older established power football schools.

But if you look at this situation and you also look at the recent firing at Kansas, I believe you see something that is potentially the tip of the iceberg.  Let’s take a quick look at it.

College football players, now more than ever, are treated like professional superstars before they ever play a down in the NFL.  And it appears that with the money that is now coming into these schools as a result of football success, the pressure continues to increase to have a top notch football team that will compete for the BCS championship.

So add that pressure to succeed to the mix along with the egos of the players and the egos of the coaches and the intense pressure for the coaches to win immediately or be gone and you start to understand that you have a formula for conflict and bad situations to arise.

Now understand I am not defending either side in this situation because I don’t know the facts.  My only point is that the landscape of the college game is changing and not all of it is for the good.  And I think that the universities and the NCAA itself need to recognize what all of this means.  And personally I believe that the universities need to be prepared to take steps when coaches OR players cross the line.

As Roger Goodell found out in the NFL, it can get out of hand quickly.