Lincoln Riley offered public remarks to the full gathering of media members at Pac-12 media day on Friday in Las Vegas. He also made the rounds with individual journalists and talk-show hosts such as John Canzano.
In his discussion with Canzano, Riley talked about Mike Leach’s enormous influence on his coaching career and on his thought process when making decisions. Leach has left a very large imprint on college football in many ways, one of which — according to Riley — has been mentioned less than it should be.
“The one thing I take from him the most professionally,” Riley told Canzano, “he didn’t care what other people thought. He is one of the greatest hirers that our sport has ever had. You look at some guys’ coaching trees, they hired obvious guys that were already pretty good. You look at Mike, Mike hired a bunch of guys nobody ever heard of. He didn’t give a damn what people thought about a hire… he just hired who he thought would do the best job. Stay focused on the things that matter.”
This is a very revealing insight into Riley. We will certainly have more to say about this in the coming weeks and months.
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