Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach passed away this week, sparking a well-deserved outpouring of not only sympathy but recognition for his impact on the game of football.
From his former players and assistants-turned-celebrity coaches (Lincoln Riley, Josh Heupel, Kliff Kingsbury) to the way his air assault offense took football from high school to the NFL (five-wide formations , fourth-down aggressiveness), nothing is quite the same.
But what Leach’s groundbreaking concepts achieved went even further.
Consider that his style – or more specifically his thinking – is not only responsible for how, for example, Patrick Mahomes plays football, but that Patrick Mahomes plays football at all.
Mahomes is one of the most exciting and marketable stars in the NFL. He and Leach never met. Yet without Leach, one can wonder if Mahomes might have quit as a college player or play a different position, let alone a different sport altogether, instead of shedding light on the NFL like few have ever done.
Go back to 2012, Mahome’s junior season at Whitehouse (Texas) High School. As a sophomore, he played safety before becoming quarterback at the Whitehouse.
Leach was coaching Washington State at the time, but while at Texas Tech (2000-2009) he installed the Air Raid Offense. Mahome’s high school coach, Adam Cook, had gone to Tech and installed a version of the system at Whitehouse.
The impact Mike Leach has had on not only his own players but also stars like Patrick Mahomes and even football as a whole is significant. (AP Photo/Scott Audette)
The Air Attack favors smart, instinctive quarterbacks. Mahomes wasn’t the most polished player at the time. He was a three-sport star, which meant he spent his offseason playing basketball and baseball, not working with a pitching specialist, attending combines, or playing endless 7-on-7 games.
However, he was adaptable, intelligent and extremely competitive. Basically, the air attack favors these qualities. A more old-fashioned, pro-style offense might not have worked for him.
“Coach Adam Cook was the first to show me the quarterback position,” Mahomes said. “He didn’t force me to be a certain type of quarterback, he just let me go out there and just play the game how I like to play it.”
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Mahomes threw for 3,839 yards and 46 touchdowns that season as a high school junior. He also rushed for 258 yards and six more points. As a senior, he threw for 4,600 yards and 50 touchdowns.
“He just always made the right decisions,” Cook said.
The junior year alone was enough to catch the eye of college football recruiters, but there were still questions about Mahomes’ future. The air raid was still considered a gimmick. If your team didn’t direct it, could the QB adapt? Was Mahomes just a system quarterback? Was he even a quarterback?
Mahomes’ father, Pat, once told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that the University of Texas recruited his son to play for safety and viewed him more as an athlete. Other schools were put off by the belief that Patrick would focus on baseball — so betting on him becoming a quarterback was risky.
Kliff Kingsbury was the head coach at Texas Tech at the time. He had played for the Red Raiders and was Leach’s first quarterback from 2000-2002. He saw everything through the prism of the air attack and therefore saw Mahomes not just as a quarterback but maybe as the perfect quarterback.
“Driving athlete,” Kingsbury said at the time. “And he’s a winner. You watch him play and he has always wanted his team.”
Mike Leach’s first quarterback at Texas Tech, Kliff Kingsbury, talks to the school’s top quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. (AP Photo/Ron Jenkins)
In other words, this was not a security. This put the best player in the most important spot. Undeterred by Mahomes possibly choosing baseball (he was later drafted by the Detroit Tigers), Kingsbury told Mahomes to come to Tech and play both sports.
Mahomes quickly got involved and began trying to connect what they were doing at Tech with what he was doing at Whitehouse.
“My coach in high school went to Texas Tech, so he had the same attacking style,” Mahomes said this week. “[When] I made visits there, I tried to learn what they are doing to include it in our offensive.
When he arrived at Texas Tech, Mahomes became a starter as a freshman. As a sophomore, he quit baseball to focus on football. In his last two seasons managing Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense, he threw for 9,705 yards and 77 touchdowns. Kansas City drafted him 10th overall in 2017.
“Coach Kingsbury took me from an athlete, a baseball player on the field, to a quarterback,” Mahomes said. “He taught me how to progress, taught me to read reports and just built me up.”
He was named the NFL MVP in his first season as a starter and won the Super Bowl in his second.
“I learned from Coach Kingsbury, so I feel like I learned from Mike Leach himself,” Mahomes added this week.
Mahomes is obviously one of the greatest athletes in the world. But if Mike Leach hasn’t redefined how offensive football is played and what qualities a quarterback needs to have to be successful at that position, is he playing quarterback in the NFL? Does he play football at all? Would he have just been a good high school or college security man before turning his attention to baseball?
It’s not far-fetched to wonder.