Evaluating a Quarterback: Mike Leach's Pillars

Late Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach was heralded as one of the best evaluators of the quarterback position in his lifetime.

Late Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach was considered one of the best evaluators of the quarterback position in his time at the helm of offenses with the record-breaking Air Raid system.

This offense and its plays have long been considered too basic and too simple by the skeptics and critics, but there is no question that it worked, as is reflected by how many quarterbacks under Leach led the nation in passing yards.

It was a recruiting pitch he used frequently for players at the position, and one that often held true at the end of seasons statistically.

Like so many things with Leach and the Air Raid, the formula he used to choose who he wanted to bring into his program and who got the starting gig was nothing incredibly complicated.

While the numbers several Air Raid quarterbacks have put up are off the charts and deemed inflated by some, they do not come without certain traits. In an offense that throws the ball 40-60 times per game when run in its purest form, success only comes with being able to operate at the highest level in the facets that truly represent the quarterback position and what the player in it is called upon to do on an every game basis.

There is a lot to be said about the tangibles, but the intangibles are just as important -- if not even more so.

"Are they accurate? Do they make good decisions?," Leach said when I asked him about the topic in the 2021 season. "The biggest, which is hard to pinpoint, because it's kind of a collection (of things) is how good they do as far as elevating the players around them. But you start with are they accurate and do they make good decisions. If they can't do that, then you can't get past square one. They've got to be able to do that."

Physical traits are of high value in the modern era, but Leach did not view those as particularly high up on the priority list.

"And a lot of times, you hear how big somebody is, how strong somebody is, how fast somebody is," he said. "Well, every bit of that is irrelevant unless they're accurate and can make good decisions. From there, you look for, do they have quick feet? Are they fast? Which, those are two different things. And then, do they have a strong arm. Some collection of those things and their ability to lead and elevate their team... you see quarterbacks come from all different levels than just Division 1."

And at the end of the day, there's no question that quarterback is not an easy position to play. Even those who fall short of some of the ideal criteria that Leach mentioned have ended up recognized at the highest level.

"And I think because it's a position that you learn, that you study, providing you can do certain things... some people don't view quarterback as a coached position," Leach said. "But I think it's arguably the most coached position on the field with the possible exception of offensive line. You've got to push that along, but people talk about all of these great quarterbacks and every one of those qualities I mentioned, I mean, the Hall of Fame is full of people that were missing two or three of those things. But it starts with how you elevate the players around you."

Out of the 50 most productive passing yardage seasons in FBS history, 10 came from quarterbacks who were coached by Leach since he took over the head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders in 2000. 

Those included one season by Kliff Kingsbury, one by B.J. Symons (2003), one by Sonny Cumbie, three by Graham Harrell (2006-08), one by Connor Halliday, one by Luke Falk (2015), one by Gardner Minshew II (2018) and one by Anthony Gordon (2019).