Mike Leach said most NFL teams run the spread offense

A strong proponent of the spread offense, Texas Tech coach Mike Leach doesn't understand why NFL personnel are so critical of the high-powered offensive scheme.

"Most of the league runs spread offenses and yet they'll be critical of them,'' Leach said during Tuesday's Big 12 Conference call. "At some point you've got to wonder how many of those guys from the NFL even know what a spread offense is _ or maybe their definition's different.

"But you look at New England, that's a spread offense. You look at the Arizona Cardinals, that's a spread offense. You look at the Green Bay Packers, that's a spread offense. The Seattle Seahawks _ a spread offense. And I can definitely go on.''

Leach has used the spread offense to take the Red Raiders to a bowl game in all nine of his seasons coaching at Tech. And that offense is always ranked among the top in the nation.

Yet, Leach constantly hears the disdain for his offense from the NFL.

"Just like a whole lot of stuff they do up there, I don't fully understand it,'' Leach said. "But certainly not everybody in the NFL is guilty of that. So maybe it's just a bunch of dumb draft prognosticators.''

Leach mostly hears that he turns his quarterbacks into "system'' quarterbacks who are never prepared for the NFL. That includes QB Graham Harrell, who set a lot of records at Tech and will be drafted at some point this weekend.

"My favorite of all is when they say, "Well, they don't think the (QB) can snap from under center,' '' Leach said. "So you'll have somebody _ whether it's their GM or a scout or whoever he is _ and that guy will be ages 30-to-75, and he doesn't think that he can teach a world-class athlete to do something that he can probably do himself.

"It's just a bunch of mindless yambering. I know that in some circles it's sacrilegious to scrutinize anything that's bad on the NFL, but I don't happen to be one of those people.''

_ Dwain Price

Comments

[John Leuck]

Well Mike, maybe when one of your QBs proves the scouts wrong you will have something to gripe about.