Lincoln Riley says Mike Leach should be in College Football Hall of Fame

Lincoln Riley says what every rational person thinks and knows: Mike Leach should be in the Hall.

Lincoln Riley could not have said it any more clearly. The USC football coach thinks the late Mike Leach, who coached Riley at Texas Tech and was one of his foremost mentors in the football industry, should be in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Why is Leach, one of the foremost innovators in college football since the late 1990s, not in the Hall of Fame? The College Football Hall of Fame has specific requirements which, many people agree, are far too rigid and need to be modified or at least given some degree of elasticity. If coaches don’t have a .600 winning percentage and have not coached for at least 10 seasons, they’re not eligible. Leach coached long enough, but his winning percentage is slightly below .600. The point to make with Leach and other coaches in terms of winning percentage is that they took on less-than-elite coaching jobs at places where it is harder to win. They shouldn’t be penalized for that, but they are.

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