Somali Pirates for Leach.

Texas Tech suspends contract negotiations with Mike Leach, whose contractual situation should not be fretted about due to the fact that Mike Leach has two more seasons left on his contract, is avowedly very much wanted in Lubbock, and enjoys a manageable level of expectations year in and year out without the inflation generated for coaches by media markets prone to doing that sort of thing to coaches.

We, for one, want Leach to stay in Lubbock, and for a number of reasons. One, he’s too weird to happily exist anywhere else, a statement that is less a slight on Leach and more a slam on the homely mediocracy of most places in the world that view oddballs like Mike Leach as dangerous men. (”He’s weird, that Mike Leach! Now for a story on how you can save gas, because it’s expensive now! Have you heard about that? What’s up with that?”)

Two, he’s a bottomless well of pirate jokes, and a world of college football humor without the ready spigot of seaborne sodomy jokes is one we don’t want to happen. Three, he conducts interviews from anywhere he pleases, including such scenic sites as fast-food drive-throughs, bathrooms, and the operating rooms where his children are foaled. (”Wait, just a second, I have to cut the cord now…there you go, little Francis Drake Leach.”)

Fourth, he’s great for Oklahoma and Texas, who would be more than happy to see Leach stay, since the ARRRRtist himself is 3-13 against the Big Two of the conference in his Red Raider tenure. Leach will make over $2 million in the last scheduled year of his contract in 2010. If someone wanted to get him, they could; in fact, he’s been downright promiscuous in his job-hunting, a fact neatly obscured by his outsized personality and mind control over the press. (He stumped quietly for the UCLA and Alabama jobs. If you just imagined Mike Leach, Pope of the Crimson Tide, you just had a small stroke, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Seek medical care immediately.)