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The AP Top 25 college football poll is back every week throughout the season! 24 Mississippi State is promoting defensive coordinator Zach Arnett to head coach to replace Mike Leach, who died suddenly of a heart condition earlier this week. Arnett was put in charge of the team by Mississippi State officials in Leach’s absence. With the early signing period …

College Football

Mike Leach dead: The Mississippi State coach’s Air Raid offense transformed college football.

Most of the coaches who stand out as singular entities in the big sweep of college football got there because they won, won, and won. As author S.C. Gwynne chronicles in The Perfect Pass, a tome of the system that Mumme once told me I should read, the Air Raid was a radical shift when Mumme and Leach developed it …

Pioneering college football coach Mike Leach dies at 61

Mike Leach, the gruff, pioneering and unfiltered college football coach who helped revolutionize the passing game with the Air Raid offense, died Monday night following complications from a heart condition, Mississippi State said Tuesday. Riley made the most of the opportunity to soak up essential traits of Leach’s Air Raid offense, fast-tracking his ascent as a young college football coaching …

Mike Leach first helped revolutionize college football offenses during his tenure at Texas Tech, planting what became a vast coaching tree and inspiring his peers. All of our prayers are with Sharon & the Leach family - Rest In Peace my friend.” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen, who also was part of Leach’s staff at Texas Tech early in his …

Mike Leach, college football coach who made the Air Raid mainstream, dies at 61

There is an alternate universe where the committee that selected the new football coach for the Key West High Conchs chose correctly in 1996. “Coach Mike Leach cast a tremendous shadow not just over Mississippi State University, but over the entire college football landscape,” MSU president Mark E. Keenum said in a statement. “The place is like Disneyland, only without …

Mississippi State coach Mike Leach looks across the field during a game against Georgia on Nov. 14. Sports Pioneering college football coach Mike Leach dies at 61 Mississippi State says football coach Mike Leach has died following complications from a heart condition at the age of 61. Today, with the official announcement that Leach died following complications from a heart …

College

Commentary: Where does Lincoln Riley’s first-year turnaround at USC fit in college football history?

USC defensive back Calen Bullock reacts with defensive backs Max Williams and Latrell McCutchin after intercepting a pass late in the game against Notre Dame at the Coliseum on Saturday. So, USC’s wondrous whirlwind from 4-8 to 11-1 and the doorstep of the College Football Playoff in Lincoln Riley’s first season got me to thinking this week: Where does Riley’s …

Mike Leach settles into a leather chair in his office overlooking Mississippi State’s practice field after a routine spring session with his team and is asked to give a status report on the Air Raid offense, which has been carving up major-college defenses for the last 25 years. Other Air Raid descendants who are currently FBS head coaches include USC’s …

Dave Nichol, a new assistant and longtime college receivers coach who joined USC’s staff just in December, has died, the school announced Friday. Nichol followed Riley to USC after spending most of his career as an assistant coach under Mike Leach, the Air Raid aficionado who also gave Riley his first coaching job. Eventually, Nichol would take Riley’s place as …