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Mississippi State’s Mike Leach Pulls Off a Coaching Move You’ve Never Seen Before

Also in Traina Thoughts: Vikings have the Celebration of the Day; Giannis reveals the reason for his monster start; Aaron Rodgers disses Lions and more.

Jimmy Traina

1. I’ve said many times in this column that football coaches, for a variety of reasons, are some of the weirdest people on the face of the earth.

Sometimes, their bizarre behavior is just disturbing; At other times it’s disturbing yet amusing. This brings me to Saturday night’s Auburn–Mississippi State game.

The Bulldogs jumped out to a 24–6 lead at halftime, but then went scoreless in the third quarter as the Tigers cut the deficit to 24–19. The game ended up going to overtime with Mississippi State eventually pulling off a 39–33 win.

Clearly, Leach blamed his team’s offensive struggles in the third quarter on his wide receivers, because he decided to do some housekeeping on the sidelines while the Mississippi State defense was taking the field. A clearly frustrated Leach went down the row and methodically folded up each and every chair being used by his wideouts and tossed them aside. Drop some passes, no sitting on your asses. It’s Coaching 101.

“We were in that period of time where it sure seemed to me we were a lot more interested in sitting in that chair than being on the football field or rooting for our teammates, so it was my opinion that we oughta be rooting for our teammates rather than kind of lounge it because we pretty much had everything but playing cards over there, so I thought it was time to move on from that.”

Earlier in his press conference it seemed Leach made another reference, in which he shunned political correctness, to express his dismay that his players enjoyed sitting down so much.

“I guess you can say we’re tough and dumb,” said Leach. “We are tough, though, and so that part’s good. We gotta learn to enjoy prosperity a little more. How do you enjoy prosperity? Well, you do all the stuff that got you there in the first place. All the little things. It’s not some deal where—I’ll get in trouble for this, I’m certain—but where instead of playing hard and getting a first down and getting a play, you wanna sit behind a shade tree, eat a fish sandwich and drink a lemonade with your fat little girlfriend, and that’s what we’re shooting for way too often. When can we relax, making judgments on plays. It definitely bit us pretty hard and created some obstacles we had to fight through.”

Never a dull moment with Mike Leach.

2. The Vikings whipped out the bowling celebration yesterday, and it was fantastic.

It wasn’t as creative as the Vikings’ celebration, but Lions rookie Aidan Hutchinson did a nice job with his dance after picking off Aaron Rodgers.

3 Speaking of Aaron Rodgers, he had two very interesting comments after throwing three interceptions in the Packers’ 15–9 loss at Detroit on Sunday. First, he dissed the Lions, saying, “We can’t lose a game like that against that team, no.”

Then he said, “I’ve been counted out many times in my life, as have many of my teammates.”

Serious question: During his NFL career, who has ever counted out Aaron Rodgers? The guy is a Hall of Famer and one of the best quarterbacks ever. He’s literally never been counted out when it comes to football. Maybe he’s referencing the Packers’ drafting Jordan Love, but that’s not counting out Rodgers. That’s trying to protect your future.

4. Giannis Antetokounmpo is averaging 32.6 points, 12.9 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game this season. The secret to his success? Fruit.

5. I don’t think Gronk workshopped this Zach Wilson joke that he told on Fox’s pre pregame show Sunday, but that’s why we love Gronk.

6. The latest SI Media Podcast features a conversation with Jim Nantz.

It was recently announced that Nantz will step down as the lead voice of the NCAA tournament after this year, and Ian Eagle will take over that spot. Nantz reveals what went into his decision, what the tournament means to him, how he feels about Eagle getting the No. 1 gig and whether this means Nantz’s time doing the NFL and golf could be winding down. Nantz also discusses the NFL season, why he’s fine with the Lions playing on Thanksgiving every year, a possible Bills-Chiefs AFC title game rematch and much more.

Following Nantz, Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY in New York joins Jimmy for the weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, Jimmy and Sal talk about Twitter charging $20 for verification, the Kyrie Irving controversy, the NFL’s penalty for taking off your helmet and more.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: As we all try to adjust after moving the clocks back an hour this weekend, always remember that Jonah Ryan from Veep was ahead of his time.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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