It’s looking like Tennessee’s coaching search may finally be drawing to a close. At 10:42 last night, Newy Scruggs and NBCDFWSports (NBC Dallas Ft. Worth) cited sources in saying that the Vols were working on a deal with Mike Leach and that an announcement could be made today. Almost immediately after that, Dan Harralson of Saturday Down South tweeted that Leach himself said, “I’m on my way” directly to Harralson. At 11:43 p.m., Bruce Feldman — who co-wrote Leach’s book Swing Your Sword — said that “a souorce” told him that Leach’s meeting with Tennessee went very well.
Mike Leach is in his sixth season as the head coach of the Washington State Cougars. We have him listed as an offensive Guru in our taxonomy of college football coaches, primarily due to what I once termed a unique “space offense.” Leach is only 38-37 at Washington State overall, but his team is currently 18th in the nation, and he’s done that with a rolling recruiting ranking of only 49th. His recruiting rankings the last four years were 44th, 56th, 42nd, and 53rd. Whether you take that to mean he can’t recruit well or that he can coach well despite lacking SEC talent is up to you. But if he comes, he’ll at least have a couple of years to show what he can do with SEC talent.
At this point, the reports are not official and we should all be well aware by now that nothing is done until it’s done and the guy is standing at the podium, but this one somehow looks like a plausible scenario, so it’s definitely something to watch.
[UPDATE] This is obviously in limbo in light of news that John Currie has been fired as Tennessee’s athletic director.
