I've never really understood all the Leach love. I don't think this is going to be a good hire for Mississippi State. He had a really great season at Wash State where he won 11 games but he also had several mediocre seasons. Dan Mullen is now the standard that Mississippi State coaches are going to be held to. Joe Moorhead followed Mullen and the program was seen to be in decline. He was fired. Now it's Leach's turn.
I know at best State is going to be a 7 - 5, maybe 8 - 4, program at best with every once in a while maybe 9 or 10 wins. There's also going to be 6 -6 and 5 - 7 seasons. As long as State wins the State folks will accept Leach and get a kick out of his antics. But the SEC is not the Big 12 or the PAC 12 . The Air Raid offense did pretty good at those outposts but the SEC is a different row to hoe. And the culture at Mississippi State for years even before Dan Mullen has been to run the football and play a hard nose style of ball. The saying for years has been you might be State but you know when you played them you were going to be hit hard. Florida, as well as anybody, knows that from first hand experience.
Mississippi is a place where everybody knows everybody. The sportswriters all over the state know the coaches and vice versa. Leach can be awfully sarcastic and if he is losing then his sarcasm is not going to go over well in Mississippi. In Mississippi you have to be available to the media. You have to go to alumni events and mix and mingle with the boosters. The way I read Leach is that he doesn't like the politicking that goes with being an SEC head coach. He's sort of an odd ball that makes good national press but he's in a handshaking "yes sir" crowd now.
We have seen where in the past Leach has thrown his players under the bus after a loss. He has called his Washington State team fat, lazy, and entitled. Well whose fault was that? Why didn't Leach as the head coach mold them into something different? Describing your players that way doesn't go over well in Mississippi or anywhere else for that matter.
Leach at 58 years old looks over the hill to me. He is the one who looks fat, lazy, and bewildered. Coaches don't have to enjoy going to media and alumni events, but down south you've got to at least look like you do. If he doesn't win at State I can see this all ending very badly because expectations are really high right now.