Athlon Snags Anonymous Coach Quotes About Mike Leach and the Perceptions of Washington State Football

Jul 26, 2013; Culver City, CA, USA; Washington State head coach Mike Leach speaks to the media during PAC-12 media day held at the Sony Studios Lot. On his right is outside linebacker Elliott Bosch and left is defensive back Deone Bucannon. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Athlon Sports ran an interesting feature two days ago, getting coaches to talk anonymously about their opponents in the Pac-12. I was looking forward to some trash talk or something, being that it’s totally anonymous, but we didn’t get that. We did however get a couple interesting takes on the presumed “lack of talent” in the Wazzu cupboard and some Mike Leach bad-mouthing? Take a look.

"“I don’t know how they are looking right now, but there is a little mystique about them — a lot of grumblings around that team with the way things are being handled. That’s not good. They’ve got some talent, but they are going to have to get on the same page and buy in. I don’t know if there’s some dissatisfaction among the players about how the coach is handling them. I don’t really know for sure what goes on up there. But from what I’ve heard there is some dissatisfaction with how the players are being treated and how it’s run.” …“They’ve got to get a quarterback, particularly to do what they want to do. I don’t know much about their receiving corps. Their best guy (Marquess Wilson) left and didn’t finish out the season. They are going to need some receivers. They also need chemistry and a quarterback.” …“They are going have to get some more players. What they want to do is throw the ball all the time, and in order to do that, you need somebody to throw it and you need somebody to catch it. I’m not sure they have either.”"

I presume that’s three separate people speaking and there’s no way to tell if they are all head coaches or the water boys, but that perception is befuddling to say the least.

The first comment centers around a player (or players) that have been gone for a long time now. The second and third comments are from guys that seem to have no idea of anything about the Cougs, which leads me to believe they didn’t play WSU last season or at least didn’t see Halliday (or any receivers [?]) during their games. Anybody that played them knows they are dangerous and there isn’t a head coach in the league that should question a top ten nationally ranked passing attack for their receivers when only one significant guy left… right?

I do know that we can rule out a bunch of head coaches that already know something (anything) about the Cougs. If these comments did indeed come from head coaches, Lane Kiffin, Mike McIntyre, Sonny Dykes and Rich Rod come to the forefront as guys that know little to nothing about WSU. The way we played against ASU in year one of Todd Graham, he may have said something to the effect of comment number three as well.

Either way, the detractors around the league are out early on in the Mike Leach tenure. Winning a few important games would change all of it. I sure hope the Cougs change some perception this season!

To see the original article from Athlon CLICK HERE.

Go Cougs!