Everything Mike Leach Said During Epic Press Conference After 30-6 Loss at Alabama

The Mississippi State coach talked about being scared of the Crimson Tide, players having dinosaur hands, and his evolutionary concerns for Starkville.

Christopher Walsh | Oct 23, 2022

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Alabama Crimson Tide

Following the 30-6 loss at Alabama, Mississippi State coach Mike Leach opened his postgame press conference Saturday night by saying that this week was "tough" for the players and coaches following the death of walk-on offensive lineman Sam Westmoreland.

The rest was vintage Leach:

What is it that Alabama does that gives you so much trouble?

I don't think we played well. I don't think we played well at all.

I'll tell you one thing that they do that gives us trouble, we've got some guys that are afraid of the jersey that says Alabama on it. We spent a lot of time frightened of their jerseys. You want to scare some of the guys on our team, put an Alabama jersey on, it'll scare the hell out of them.

How do you fix it?

Maybe hang something in their lockers, or something. Because there's other really good teams that we're not afraid of their jerseys, but we're afraid of Alabama's jerseys. And then there were obviously some externals that that you observed that you may or may not comment on that I'm not going to comment on ... yet. And then you can evaluate that accordingly.

What were they doing defensively that was so effective?

They were more physical. They were using their hands better than we did. They used their hands better, they shoved us around. The first half we just took it. The second half we battled back a little, but it was kind of disjointed and feeble.

On running early against the Alabama defense:

They were kind of giving it to us, and then they shut that down. I mean, you have everything. They have a good team, obviously. When you have everything you just have to execute, and we didn't execute.

We didn't execute because — you start out the game, we got say 60 minutes, and then you spend 30 of it trying to reconcile [that] they have a red jersey that says Alabama, so we're going to go ahead and be scared and timid of it. OK then, and not use their hands, and just get shoved around. OK then you have another half to try to win a game that you're already behind in, and still haven't fully reconciled that battle a little bit, and then you have a bunch of other stuff that multiplies on it. Some you're doing it and some ... others.

What second-half adjustments did you see from Alabama?

I didn't see a lot. I mean towards the end they just, you know, [drew] it out to the finish you know like probably the last several series of the fourth quarter. Prior to that I thought I thought we played harder, I thought we used our hands better, I thought we did a lot of things we could have done the first half and probably would have come in handier.

What did you see from your team this week during practices?

It's tough because everybody cares a great deal about a fellow teammate, and then it's tough because everybody's wrapped up with that, and understandably so.

On focus heading into bye week:

Well I think we need to use our hands better. We don't move our hands very good. You know, when I was a kid and I was in grade school, I was a big dinosaur guy. I can't remember the gas station, but they would give you a free dinosaur [toy]if you filled up there. That's back when they had commercials on TV and then they would give something to the kids like me. And then the idea was that you should raise hell with your parents every time you're in the station wagon. We had one, a good classic like one off the Wonder Years, one of those fake woody ones, you know, fake painted-on wood. But then the best is it would always without exception the finish and the varnish on it would peel. So then it looked more bogus than ever. So we had one of those and of course I tried to sit way back, in that jump seat back there, so you could pretend you were in a spaceship or something, and, but anyway, so they'd have these commercials and they're hoping to get the kids to raise hell, 'Let's go to this gas station.' I can't remember what the gas station it was, and they'd give you a little dinosaur, you know. And you'd go to grade school and all that, and they'd start talking about evolution like as in if you don't use a certain part of your body, as time evolves over century upon century, in natural selection, that part of the body disappears and even that animal might disappear.

I'm genuinely fearful that on our team if me and the other coaches don't get them right, that about a generation from now their kids and their grandkids won't have hands. Because from a lack of use those hands just disappear. Maybe they'll be like this (Leach does raptor hands at the podium), like those dinosaur hands like this, And you've got like a tyrannosaurus rex, which is clearly really good at eating things, with big ol' jaws and all that stuff, certainly athletic and can run. Those hands are like this (gestures again). I think we took a very, very, very big step as a team, which we have to correct this. We have to correct this because, you know, I think that its best in the end for these guys that they have good hand development and that they don't evolve to where they don't have hands.

Ok, but we definitely didn't use ours and so there certainly wasn't any genetic reinforcement on our part that we should maintain our hands. I mean, and I don't want all of a sudden guys driving across this country and then they get to Starkville, Mississippi, and all of a sudden there's these athletic-looking friendly guys, because we have great guys, that don't have any hands. And I hope that that's not the case, but that's where we're headed right now. And we're going to try to get that fixed during this off week.

On Alabama's explosive plays and the time Bryce Young had to throw:

That's part of it for sure. Part of it, and part of the reason he had a lot of time to throw is because we didn't use our hands. And so, you know, yeah they didn't use their hands.

By the way, the gas station was a Sinclair Station that gave away the dinosaur toys.

Did you get some too?

No, we didn't have any in our area.

I'll tell you the other one, Huskey used to give those coins, like the guys in the Old West, you could get a Buffalo Bill one, you could get a drunk one, a Wild Bill one. It was outstanding.

You mentioned the thing about the jerseys, the uniform, did that factor to the drops?

Oh heck yeah. I think it factored big-time. You know, if the ball hits you in the hand what what difference does it make if a seventh-grader is throwing it or an All-Pro? If the ball flies through air, hits hands, it's a catch. Oh yeah.

With running back Dillon Johnson out, how do you think Simeon Price did?

I thought he did good. Simeon I would actually say was one of our bright spots today. I would say Simeon's been kind of percolating a little and doing some good things since he had a good camp. So I did think he did some good stuff.

On quarterback Will Rogers' performance even with all the dropped passes:

I didn't think it was particularly good. Well, you know, his performance so many people have a hand in it between him, protection and O-line, and then getting separation and being in a position to catch it, and then catch it. No, I didn't think that we did very good job with that. I thought that he was late on some balls. Part of it was he never really got into a rhythm.

Did anyone sort of emerge this week in terms of leadership?

Ah, not really, not particularly. It's still Will and Bookie [Nathanial Watson] are kind of the mouthpieces and we're trying to get some more people involved. Really all you gotta do is just follow Will and Bookie's examples of work [and all].

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