Has Mike Leach Lost Control of his Players?

Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Mike Leach has always been unpredictable. He is likely to do the unexpected, whether with his play calling or his interviews. But this year’s antics seem to have had a larger impact, and not a positive one.

Have Texas Tech players lost faith in their coach?

Things began to go bad after Tech lost to the Texas Longhorns back in September. A week later, they had a heartbreaking loss to Houston.

Star lineman and makeup artist Brandon Carter was suspended indefinitely. The reason hasn’t been disclosed, but the smart money is that he either mouthed off to Leach, or screwed up his steroid program. The suspension lasted only one game, so it’s most likely the former.

The Sunday after the Houston loss, senior linebacker Marlon Williams posted to his Twitter account wondering why he was on time for a meeting when the head coach wasn’t.

Leach then banned at Texas Tech players from using Twitter.

It seemed that Leach had pulled things back together, with the Red Raiders rolling off a trio of wins against New Mexico, Kansas State, and Nebraska. None of the games were even close.

Then, Texas A&M came to Lubbock. The hapless Aggies had lost three straight, including Kansas State beating wholesale ass 62-14. The debate was whether it would take Tech the whole game to hang a hundred on the Aggies, or whether they could do it in a half.

Texas A&M hadn’t beaten Tech in Lubbock since Bill Clinton was halfway through his first term as president.

To everyone’s surprise, the Aggies leave Lubbock with a 52-30 victory.

After the loss, the questions to Leach weren’t pretty. When asked about the team’s struggles his year, he said:

We failed to make our coaching points more compelling than their fat little girlfriends. Now their fat little girlfriends have some obvious advantages. For one thing, their fat little girlfriends are telling them what they want to hear, like how great you are and how easy it’s going to be.

It’s very difficult at times to tell if Leach is serious or not, but I can’t imaging that insulting the girlfriends of the players is likely to build much team unity.

We’ll find out this afternoon when the Kansas Jayhawks suit up in Lubbock.

Kansas has been looking weaker and weaker as the season has worn on, but if they can steal a victory today, things could get very interesting in Lubbock.