'There’s nobody like him': Mike Leach is one of a kind – take it from Bob Stoops | Toppmeyer

Mike Leach did not do brief phone calls. Bob Stoops learned this years ago.

When Leach called, inevitably late at night, Stoops knew what awaited on the other end of that line: Answer the phone and be entertained into the wee hours with conversation about who knows what.

Answer that phone, and Leach would talk … and talk some more – about anything.

“Buddies that know him and love him, he’ll call you at midnight, and sometimes you answer, you don’t get off the phone until 1:30 in the morning,” Stoops, the former longtime Oklahoma coach, told me Monday, “and then, sometimes, if you’re too tired, you don’t answer, because you know it’s going to be 1:30 or 2. It’s going to be an hour and a half conversation.”

And the conversation might stray into any direction, when talking to this man of many interests.

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Stoops recalls stopping by Leach’s office after hiring him to be Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator ahead of the 1999 season.

A photo of Geronimo hung in Leach’s office, and Stoops tumbled into a chat with Leach about the Apache leader and medicine man. An hour later, and Leach was still discussing Geronimo.

“Obsessed with Geronimo,” Stoops said of Leach.

Unique is the word Stoops kept returning to as he shared a few Leach stories with me on Monday, while his friend remained hospitalized. Leach, Mississippi State's third-year coach, died Monday night following complications from a heart condition, MSU announced. He was 61.

Leach coached from Pori, Finland, to Pullman, Washington, amid a fascinating career.

Stoops hired Leach to his inaugural Sooners staff because he knew firsthand how much of a pain it was to defend a Leach offense.

Stoops had been Florida’s defensive coordinator while Leach coordinated Kentucky’s offense under Hal Mumme.

Stoops knew Mumme wouldn’t leave an SEC coaching position to run Oklahoma’s offense, so he inquired about Leach, Mumme’s protégé.

Could Leach run the offense on his own, for Stoops at Oklahoma?

“Absolutely,” Mumme told Stoops.

Leach was at OU for just one season – he left to become Texas Tech’s coach – but his impact was profound in helping Stoops jump-start a program that had been a snoozing giant.

Not only did Leach bring Mumme's Air Raid offense to OU, he helped secure quarterback talent that would aid the Sooners for years. In that lone offseason with Leach on staff, Oklahoma signed Josh Heupel as a junior college transfer, inked Jason White out of high school and added Nate Hybl as a transfer from Georgia.

Leach – and his offense – were instrumental in the recruiting haul.

“He was the guy. That’s why they came with us,” Stoops said of OU’s quarterback class that year.

Heupel became a Heisman Trophy runner-up in 2000, and the Sooners won the national championship that season. Hybl became a Rose Bowl MVP. White would win the Heisman in 2003.

Heupel, in particular, was Leach's prized recruit, out of Snow College in Utah.

"Josh was not highly recruited whatsoever, at all, but Mike loved him," Stoops recalled. "He said, ‘This is our guy,’ and I trusted Mike. I liked watching Josh on tape, and I said, ‘I’m going to trust you. If that’s what you want, we’re going to do it.’”

Heupel connected with Leach while they watched game film seated on Leach's office floor in OU's new football complex.

“We didn’t have furniture yet, because we were just moving into the Switzer Center," Leach told the USA TODAY Network in 2021. “We sat on the floor watching film after film – that was when it was VHS still – and talked offense.”

After Leach left OU, he made a career out of winning at places where wins don't come easily – Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. His pass-happy offense traveled with him. Sixteen winning seasons in 21 years as a coach, including an 8-4 mark this season.

Leach's successful 10-year tenure at Texas Tech created a ripple effect throughout high school offenses in Texas.

Oklahoma, then Texas Tech, had provided Leach a bigger platform to showcase the Air Raid. It caught on.

"You look around the state of Texas, about every high school, for the most part, probably 80% of them, had some forms of his offense," Stoops said. "He had a huge influence from his time at Tech and with us."

Leach's coaching tree is far-reaching, too. Just look at this year's Heisman Trophy balloting.

Three of the top five vote-getters for the Heisman (winner Caleb Williams, Southern Cal; second-place Max Duggan, TCU; and fifth-place Hendon Hooker, Tennessee) play for coaches who either played for Leach or coached under him.

USC's Lincoln Riley and TCU's Sonny Dykes coached for Leach at Texas Tech. Heupel is in his second season coaching Tennessee.

But to label Leach as a master of offense is to pigeonhole a coach of broad interests.

The year Leach worked on Stoops' staff, Oklahoma's coaches sometimes would gather at Mark Mangino's apartment after work. Coaches would tap out as the hours wore on, while Leach forged ahead, ever the night owl, ever curious.

"Mangino would be going to bed, and Mike would be sitting on the end of the bed, still watching ‘Howard Stern,'" Stoops said.

"He is the best," Stoops added. "... He is unique. There’s nobody like him, I promise you.”

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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