Mike Leach
Followed Joe Moorhead. Mike Leach held Mississippi State at Power Program III for 3 seasons.
Career arc
His real stature score, season by season, across every program he’s coached — so a stretch that stays in one tier the whole way can still climb or sink on the line, not just flatten out. Node color marks the tier reached. Which program a stretch belongs to is carried by the shaded lane behind it.
Reached Power Program in his 7th career season — faster than 21% of the 395 FBS coaches who have ever reached Power Program (rank #297 of 395 by seasons-to-arrival).
Style position and drift
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 258 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2014–2025.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
19–20 against his rivals. Winless in 6 tries against Chris Petersen.
His own effect, isolated
A statistical estimate of this coach’s contribution to team performance, separated from that season’s roster talent, returning production, and his coordinators — pooled across his whole head-coaching career.
Model fit as of 2026-09-04.
Coaching career
2nd-best Mississippi State tenure of 20 by the numbers.
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on offense and outperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Followed Joe Moorhead (2018–2019).
| Season | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 4–7 | 7–6 | 8–4 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | |
| Recruiting rank | #27 | #25 | #27 | |
| Style — pass rate | ||||
| Pass rate | 73.3 | 72.3 | 68.2 | |
| Coordinators | ||||
| OC | — | — | — | |
| DC | Zach Arnett | Zach Arnett | Zach Arnett | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | 13 | 88 | 50 | |
| Defense | 65 | 69 | 90 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script (2021+ only) | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | 75.9 | 73.2 | 65.2 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 65.8 | 73.4 | 69.4 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 41.9 | 27.8 | 45.2 | |
A typical amount of portal roster-building.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
11 NFL Draft picks: Willie Gay Jr. (2020), Cameron Dantzler (2020), Tyre Phillips (2020), Tommy Stevens (2020), Brian Cole II (2020), Marquiss Spencer (2021), Kylin Hill (2021), Charles Cross (2022) + 3 more
2 player-seasons honored (All-America / national award): Charles Cross (2021), Emmanuel Forbes (2022)
5th-best Washington State tenure of 21 by the numbers.
Outperforms his recruiting talent on offense and performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on defense.
Followed Paul Wulff (2008–2011) · succeeded by Nick Rolovich (2020–2021).
| Season | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||
| Record | 3–9 | 6–7 | 3–9 | 9–4 | 8–5 | 9–4 | 11–2 | 6–7 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | L bowl | |
| Recruiting rank | — | — | #53 | #42 | #56 | #44 | #46 | #65 | |
| Style — pass rate | |||||||||
| Pass rate | — | — | 76.0 | 71.5 | 64.7 | 70.2 | 70.8 | 77.2 | |
| Coordinators | |||||||||
| OC | — | — | — | Mike Leach | Mike Leach | Mike Leach | Mike Leach | Mike Leach | |
| DC | — | — | Mike Breske | Alex Grinch | Alex Grinch | Alex Grinch | Tracy Claeys | Tracy Claeys / Darcel McBath / Roc Bellantoni (interim; games 6–13) | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||
| Offense | — | — | 61 | 50 | 68 | 51 | 87 | 74 | |
| Defense | — | — | 14 | 62 | 46 | 67 | 24 | 15 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script (2021+ only) | |||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | 73.0 | 68.3 | 62.9 | 67.0 | 65.0 | 77.0 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | 77.3 | 70.7 | 59.5 | 67.5 | 62.0 | 78.1 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | 48.8 | 45.9 | 52.4 | 22.2 | 54.8 | 41.9 | |
11 NFL Draft picks: Marquess Wilson (2013), Deone Bucannon (2014), Xavier Cooper (2015), Vince Mayle (2015), Joe Dahl (2016), Shalom Luani (2017), Cole Madison (2018), Luke Falk (2018) + 3 more
1st-best Texas Tech tenure of 15 by the numbers.
Followed Spike Dykes (1986–1999) · succeeded by Tommy Tuberville (2010–2012).
20 NFL Draft picks: Anthony Malbrough (2000), Sammy Morris (2000), Kris Kocurek (2001), Kevin Curtis (2002), Aaron Hunt (2003), Kliff Kingsbury (2003), Carlos Francis (2004), B.J. Symons (2004) + 12 more