Mike Leach doesn’t think Alabama is a Top 5 team
"I've got Alabama in my top 7..."
Former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach has been given a regular time slot on SIRIUS XM satellite radio and is making the most of it in the early going of the 2010 season.
As co-host of College Sports Nation along with Jack Arute, Leach had this to say about where he thinks top ranked Alabama really belongs in the pecking order right now:
"I think Alabama's a top 10 team right now and, like I said, I'm fully prepared to be wrong.
Right now, I don't think they're a top 5 team. I've got Alabama in my top 7.
I think Ohio State's better than Alabama. Florida I think has some really good, young, emerging players. The worst game Florida played last year was the one against Alabama so my thought is Florida gets Alabama this time around."
Two former coaches in the state of Alabama, who earned their fair share of scorn from the state of Idaho for comments directed at Boise State last week, turned their attention to Leach while making their weekly appearance on the Paul Finebaum radio show.
Former Alabama football coach Gene Stallings begins by dishing out a nice slice of unintended irony:
"Well, first of all, where is he coaching? If he's not any smarter than that, he has no business coaching."
Pat Dye, former Auburn head football coach:
"I wouldn't want him teaching my child if he doesn't have better sense than that."
Current college coaches be sure to make a note. If you plan on stopping by the Dye household on a recruiting visit, have your current top 25 poll in hand before knocking on the door.
Stallings:
You're talking about a top 7 or a top 10 team. I've looked at a lot of football teams and, you know things can change but as of right now, I haven't seen anybody that I think is better than Alabama.
Then Leach's credentials are further explored by the Stallings and Dye comedy duo.
Dye:
"It's world renowned. Everybody knows (Leach) is crazy and that proves it if he don't think Alabama's the number one team in the country.
I mean, he likes skeletons and pirates and things that folks with good sense don't care nothing about."
Stallings:
"He never played. He's one of the few coaches that's been in a major conference that hadn't played and he's one of them."
Dye:
"I didn't realize that."
Stallings:
"Yeah, he didn't play. That doesn't mean you've gotta play to coach but most coaches have played some and anyway he's one that hadn't."
He may be crazy. He may not have played college football. But before he put Craig James's kid in the corner, he made a Lubbock-based football program nationally relevant.
Perhaps a little credit is due to the guy?
The conversation eventually swings back to Boise State where Pat Dye takes his own turn at a Mike Leach-style re-ranking of a highly touted team.
Dye:
"I'd put (Boise State) somewhere probably 10 or 11... 12. Somewhere in there.
I don't think they're better than Florida. I don't think they're better than Ohio State. I don't think they're better than Iowa, Alabama, Oklahoma, Oregon. You know they may not be better than TCU. Even though they beat TCU in the bowl game last year.
And some of the teams that are going to end up with 1 or 2 or 3 losses may be as good as Boise State. And I love the coach and I love the team and the quarterback and all of it but until they play a schedule that is comparable to the teams in the Big Ten and the Pac-12 and the SEC then I don't think that you can talk about them in the same way.
Yes, he did say Pac-12. Which means he's either visiting us from the year 2012 (when Colorado is expected to complete the dozen) or perhaps prefacing this comment about the Utes:
"Utah may be better than Boise State. They're a pretty good football team. I'll say that."
And if the BCS suits have their way, Utah and Boise State could eventually get the opportunity to settle that all important score in a bowl not named the BCS title game.