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Mike Leach has been at the front of the passing revolution in football circles for three decades.  He worked with Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan in 1989, and that’s where the two began creating the Air Raid offense. Together they moved on to Valdosta State in Georgia, and then up to major college football when they moved to Kentucky in 1997.   There, Leach mentored a future number one overall draft pick; two years later, he moved to Oklahoma and helped the Sooners win a national title before embarking on a decade-long stint in Lubbock as head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders.  And since 2012, Leach has been the head coach at Washington State.

The table below shows all of Leach’s starting quarterbacks during his time in major college football:

 
Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass
Player Year Class School G Cmp Att Pct Yds TD Int Rate
Tim Couch 1997 SO Kentucky 11 363 547 66.4 3884 37 19 141.4
Tim Couch 1998 JR Kentucky 11 400 553 72.3 4275 36 15 153.3
Josh Heupel 1999 SR Oklahoma 12 305 472 64.6 3606 20 15 136.4
Kliff Kingsbury 2000 SO Texas Tech 12 361 584 61.8 3412 21 17 116.9
Kliff Kingsbury 2001 JR Texas Tech 11 364 528 68.9 3502 25 9 136.9
Kliff Kingsbury 2002 SR Texas Tech 14 479 712 67.3 5017 45 13 143.7
B.J. Symons 2003 SR Texas Tech 13 470 719 65.4 5833 52 22 151.3
Sonny Cumbie 2004 SR Texas Tech 12 421 642 65.6 4742 32 18 138.5
Cody Hodges 2005 SR Texas Tech 12 353 531 66.5 4238 31 12 148.3
Graham Harrell 2006 SO Texas Tech 13 412 616 66.9 4555 38 11 145.8
Graham Harrell 2007 JR Texas Tech 13 512 713 71.8 5705 48 14 157.3
Graham Harrell 2008 SR Texas Tech 13 442 626 70.6 5111 45 9 160.0
Taylor Potts 2009 JR Texas Tech 11 309 470 65.7 3440 22 13 137.1
Steven Sheffield 2009 JR Texas Tech 6 101 136 74.3 1219 14 4 177.6
Jeff Tuel 2012 SR Washington State 10 211 332 63.6 2087 8 8 119.5
Connor Halliday 2012 SO Washington State 9 152 291 52.2 1878 15 13 114.5
Connor Halliday 2013 JR Washington State 13 449 714 62.9 4597 34 22 126.5
Connor Halliday 2014 SR Washington State 9 354 526 67.3 3873 32 11 145.0
Luke Falk 2014 FR Washington State 5 156 243 64.2 1859 13 7 140.4
Luke Falk 2015 SO Washington State 12 447 644 69.4 4561 38 8 145.9
Luke Falk 2016 JR Washington State 13 443 633 70.0 4468 38 11 145.6
Luke Falk 2017 SR Washington State 12 357 534 66.9 3593 30 13 137.0
Tyler Hilinski 2017 SO Washington State 8 130 179 72.6 1176 7 7 132.9
Gardner Minshew 2018 SR Washington State 13 468 662 70.7 4779 38 9 147.6

These quarterbacks amassed amazing numbers under Leach, but have never made much of an impact in the NFL. Tim Couch was the first of many quarterbacks drafted by the new Browns, and while he flashed some talent, injuries and a weak supporting cast ruined his career. Couch finished with a 22-37 record and had the worst passing numbers of the 30 quarterbacks to throw 1,000 pass attempts during his time in the NFL.

Josh Heupel was drafted by Miami with the 177th pick in the 2001 draft, but by that time, 6th round quarterbacks drafted by AFC East teams had sold their souls to the devil. He never played in an NFL regular season game.

Kliff Kingsbury, who produced video game numbers under Leach at Texas Tech, was a 6th round pick to the Patriots in 2003, and he suffered a simialr fate, completing 1 of 2 passes in his career.

B.J. Symons was the 248th pick to Houston in the 2004 Draft, but he never played in an NFL game.

Cumbie and Hodges both went undrafted, and while they made it to NFL teams in the preseason, neither ever made it to a regular season roster.

The last big star in Lubbock, Graham Harrell, went undrafted, too: he wound up throwing 4 pass attempts with the Packers in his entire NFL career.  Leach’s last two Texas Tech quarterbacks, Sheffield and Potts, didn’t make it to the NFL.

Leach’s Cougars quarterbacks haven’t been any better.  Jeff Tuel did start a game in the NFL after going undrafted, but it wasn’t pretty.  Halliday didn’t make it to the NFL.  With the 199th pick in the 2018 Draft, the Titans drafted Luke Falk, and while he just started his first NFL game, it didn’t go very well[1]Tyler Hilinksi, who replaced Falk in 2017, tragically died in 2018, and an autopsy revealed that he suffered from CTE.

Gardner Minshew II was Washington State’s starter in 2018, and like most Leach quarterbacks, he put up eye-popping numbers. He led the NCAA last season in pass attempts, pass completions, ranked 2nd in passing yards nationally to Dwayne Haskins, and ranked 4th in passing touchdowns to Haskins, Tua Tagovailoa, and Kyler Murray. He set a single-season Pac-12 record for passing yards, but it didn’t come close to cracking the Leach top-4 seasons in passing yards. He was drafted by Jacksonville with the 178th pick in the 2019 Draft, one pick later than Heupel went 18 years earlier.

You can understand the hesitation teams had in drafting a Leach quarterback with great stats: with the exception of Couch, none of them had ever come close to showing the ability to be an NFL starter.  And Couch, at least statistically, was a terrible one.  Even non-Leach “Air Raid” quarterbacks who were 1st or 2nd round picks like Geno Smith, Johnny Manziel, Brandon Weeden, and Kevin Kolb had flamed out in the NFL.  As recently as two years ago, the question was whether Patrick Mahomes could make it in the NFL as an Air Raid quarterback, although Jared Goff wound up answering that question before Mahomes ever started an NFL game (and that same year, Nick Foles won the Super Bowl and Case Keenum had his breakout season: 2017 was really the year of the Air Raid in the NFL).

Minshew and Leach at Washington State

Of course, eventually the best college teams hired the Air Raid coaches, because well, those were the best coaches.   And so you have a national powerhouse like Oklahoma bringing in Lincoln Riley as head coach, a longtime Leach disciple at Texas Tech.  Riley’s Sooners have run the Air Raid offense and produced the last two number one picks in Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, so we are past the days of the offense being treated as gimmicky.

That said, when it comes to pure Leach quarterbacks, there is a good chance that Minshew will be the best one the NFL has ever had.  He’s already got a stranglehold on the #2 spot, and passing Couch’s legacy in the NFL won’t be a tall order.  Minshew is averaging 7.6 ANY/A through 88 passes and has helped revitalize a Jaguars offense. Minshew’s success is going to be fascinating to watch, but it also makes me wonder if Tim Couch’s biggest weakness was that he entered the NFL twenty years too soon.

References

References
1 Tyler Hilinksi, who replaced Falk in 2017, tragically died in 2018, and an autopsy revealed that he suffered from CTE.
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