Who knows what Edward Britton did: improperly handled a yardarm, cut a doubloon too skinny for the cap’n’s liking, or perhaps dipped his wick into another swabby’s wench’s personal pitch-bucket…the list of potential violations of the pirate code is a lengthy one.

Fortunately, we don’t have to guess wildly: Britton, the number one receiver on Texas Tech’s depth chart with the departure of Michael Crabtree, was not holding up his end of the student/athlete bargain with his scholarship providers at Texas Tech. The student part, mostly. Therefore, Leach forbade him to practice on Friday and took the already demoted Britton and made him study on the fifty yard line for an hour and a half after practice in thirty degree weather.

Leach even had a desk brought out onto the double T at the fifty for Britton thus confirming that Leach is kind of an asshole when he wants to be, albeit in a cheeky, ninja professor kind of way. (Anyone who’ll ring up fifty frequently on opponents has to be, but add this to the pile of complimentary evidence.) All this for sacrificing his sure academic footing for an easy thrill [/henriducard'd].

“Ed didn’t like showing up and studying at places I felt like he needed to and like the academic people asked him to, so he can go study out there on the 50-yard line,” Leach said. “We’ll take baby steps, and if he does good studying out there, we’ll decide if we’re going to actually let him practice.”

Britton did make it through the entire 90 minutes, thus doubling the amount of time we actually spent studying in college. We congratulate him on this accomplishment, and on Mike Leach for confirming that he is secretly Ras-Al-Goul, and trains his quarterbacks to throw to not five men, but to five hundred, and to become more than a man in the eyes of their opponent. (HT: Dan.)

In which we hereby evaluate the stock price of the S.S. Leach, a maritime property currently owned by landlubbing investors in Lubbock, Texas, but likely on sale within the next year in an IPO or sudden hostile takeover. All investing advice is exactly that: advice. As with any investment, returns may vary, unless we’re talking about Chan Gailey, who is scientifically proven to yield an exact 7-5 record every year over a 20 year period.

Year in profile: Stock price peaked dramatically on 11/8 with a 56-20 stripping of Oklahoma State, taking the team to 10-0 in the hottest heat of the Great Big 12 South Bubble of 2008. Leach was saluted as a genius come full blossom, and found his minions pollinating press posies with prodigious praise prodigiously:

But if he had gone to say, U.S.C., 10 years ago and installed his system there, it would be comical. He would score every time – and he would have a defense by default because he would get great athletes.

Bubbl’d. The proclamations of a Leachian Annus Mirabilis proved premature: while Texas Tech ran out to their best record ever and beat number one Texas in the process, the remainder of the year fell under the shadow of as dramatic a pantsing as could be envisioned. We speak, of course, of the Nutcrush at Norman.

Losing 65-21 on national television qualified as a dramatic market correction, but especially so for the Red Raiders’ vaunted line, comprised of Mankind, The Burrito Tower, and many men with many nicknames that all evaporated into a uniform moniker of “Speed Bump.” Texas Tech looked both out-hustled and out-coached, a combination sending Texas Tech’s stock price plummeting as the bubble began to burst.

Double-bubbl’d. The full correction came in the Cotton Bowl when Tech was run roughshod by Ole Miss, the by-proxy national champion, in a 47-31 brawl following pattern for all Texas Tech losses: abundant points topped by being outmuscled by the other team at the line of scrimmage and bleeding out on defense despite new ownership, new attitude, pardon our mess, try our new flavor, blah blah blah.

Outlook: A case of things changing and remaining the same. We remain convinced that a coach puts together one kind of team and is incapable of doing much else. Though he may have the excuse of working with “scraps” of recruiting, Leach’s teams remain indifferent on defense and prone to losing games to anyone with an edge along the lines. (Football nostrums 101, yes, but what of the “it-doesn’t-matter-because-the-scheme-cures-all” argument?)

It gets worse for Leach when you consider the timing of his current contract tiff. With all the major coaching jobs full, Leach is now locked into Texas Tech for the foreseeable future. He’s a lousy interview–okay, not lousy, but he’s weird, and that scares the Muggles a bit too much for their own good–and tends to commit the cardinal sin of saying whatever he thinks. (Again, a great and unique trait disparaged by the tiny dwarf-minds of the universe.)

Current stock outlook: Bear-ish. Right, now, Leach is a financial services stock. Capable of great heights, but stuck in a deep rut created of circumstances not entirely under his control. Like any good pirate, capable of striking with flair on a hot streak, and then scuttling his own good fortune when lined up head to head with a ship of the line. Caveat emptor.

In part three of Jim Tressel’s Vacation, a.k.a. Where in the World is Carmen, OhioSanDiego: A cheap, weathered envelope sits in the mailbox in Ohio. It is covered with numerous inscrutable postmarks. Inside it is a simple postcard and a photograph.

Front:

Back: (more…)

Leach and Pat Hill are both out of consideration for the Washington job. It is still a pirate’s life for Leach, who is theoretically still in line for the Auburn job or a hefty pay raise at his own job.

Buckethead proves that being frightening and talented are not mutually exclusive, but indeed necessarily inclusive. Much like Leach, now that we think of it.

De’Shon Sanders is the snowman, and he’s gonna melt under the interrogation lamps: the reserve defensive back for the Texas Tech Red Raiders was arrested at 1:30 in the morning today in Lubbock by DEA agents. Please note the scary Federal acronym. That’s the DEA, as in “pound-you-in-the-ass federal prison” Feds. Sanders, caught with over 50 grams of cocaine, is trouble spelled with a capital DAMN.

Sanders is also a housemate of Michael Crabtree. Crabtree has not been implicated in the case in any way.

It cannot help Mike Leach’s efforts to sufficiently gain leverage to bleed some extra booty from the rules of his home port to have this happen, and it is a marginal distraction for Washington, who might be the team most serious about hiring Leach as a head coach. As for Auburn, who probably has a booster who is already literally throwing money at him and crying into the phone to him, this won’t matter OH GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE PLEASE COME COACH OUR FOOTBALL TEAM HOLY GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE.

LSUFreek was out with IT problems for much of the week, but all has been reconciled in the universe and is back on its proper axis.

Yes, it’s good to have you back, sir.

No poetry. Just four quarters of T1 speed death. You’re looking live at a free-fire zone. Watch your ass.

Mike Leach turned him into a newt! He’s weird and it scares us!

Suddenly, we remember why we hate the state of our birth:

Griffith also has this to say about Mike Leach: ” Mike Leach still has his name thrown around, but I don’t see it. No one is going to come into the SEC and win with Xs and Os – it takes talent, not gadgets.

And, I just don’t see Leach (47) being able to handle the level of scrutiny that comes with the UT head football coach job. It’s a regal position – hardly a post for someone with erratic and eccentric personality traits.”

Regal? What kind of simpering bootlicking shitkickers think of a football coach as necessarily regal? What’s more regal than the Texas Tech offense, the one that keeps quarterbacks clean, moves the ball, and scores more points than Tennessee’s ever scored in their most fevered, ham-scented dreams? Total gadgetry, just like the Urban Meyer offense.

Want to know what we hate about the state? That fucking attitude. Not even Alabama’s that stodgy. (more…)