Mike Leach will appear on the 2027 College Football Hall of Fame ballot when it’s released Monday, sources close to the process confirmed to FootballScoop on Friday. On3 first reported the news.
The National Football Foundation, who manages the College Football Hall of Fame, cleared the deck for Leach’s induction when it lowered the minimum winning percentage threshold from .600 to .595 one year ago. Leach carried a career .596 winning percentage (158-107) upon his death on Dec. 12, 2022. A win in the 2023 ReliaQuest Bowl, which his Bulldogs had already qualified for, would have given Leach an even .600 winning percentage.
No matter Leach’s winning percentage, his age at death (61) dictated that 2027 is the first year Leach is eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot. Coaches younger than 70 years old must be three years removed for Hall of Fame consideration, even posthumously. The 2027 class will be announced in January and inducted in December of next year.
Leach went 84-43 in 10 seasons at Texas Tech, making a bowl game in all 10 seasons, with five AP Top 25 finishes in his last six seasons. The 2008 Red Raiders began the season 10-0 and rose to No. 2 in the country.
He then went 55-47 with six bowl trips in eight seasons at Washington State, peaking with an 11-2 mark and a No. 10 final ranking in 2018. He was 19-16 with two bowl trips in three seasons upon his death at Mississippi State.
Of course, Leach’s impact stretched far beyond his ability to win at outpost programs. While Hal Mumme may have technically invented the Air Raid offense, Leach’s success at the FBS level mainstreamed it across major college football and revolutionized the game in the process. The Air Raid transformed the Big 12 Conference, and its principles spread to both high school football and the NFL, eventually producing multiple Heisman Trophy winners, No. 1 draft picks, and a multi-time NFL MVP and Super Bowl winner in former Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Leach tutored nearly 20 future college head coaches, a number of whom have gone on to train future head coaches themselves. All this by a man who never played college football himself, famously ditching a career as a lawyer to pursue his passion in coaching.
Leach was also beloved for his renegade personality, which manifest in his fascination with insurgent warfare tactics and characters, most notably pirates.
That’s a biography-worthy life distilled into seven short paragraphs. Long story even shorter: you can’t tell the story of college football without Mike Leach, and soon that story will be told in the College Football Hall of Fame.