Mike Leach: The Mad Scientist Of Football

Scott Pelley Profiles Texas Tech's Unorthodox And Successful Football Coach, Mike Leach

(CBS)  In their most famous play, they were losing to the number one team in the nation, the University of Texas, with eight seconds left on the clock.

"You know, I'm curious, you're about to lose to the number one team in the nation. What's Leach's demeanor in that moment? Is he all wrought up?" Pelley asked.

"No," Graham Harrell said.

Asked if he's angry, Harrell said, "He never gets all wrought up too much. He usually stays pretty calm. And he just turned to me and said 'Alright, let's go score.' Pretty much in that tone."

Harrell agreed it was good advice. "What else is he going to say? He said go score and that's what we did."

The Raiders scored a touchdown. The upset of the season has been described by some sportswriters as among the greatest, single, plays in the history of college football.

Leach uses five receivers. Sometimes it seems they're spread side line to side line.

Harrell goes through his choices so fast, you can't really see it. So 60 Minutes put a camera on his helmet and asked him to explain.

"Vertical to a crossing route to the two backs underneath to a dig," the quarterback said.

Turns out, it's pretty complicated. "But with the linebackers that deep it usually mean z is kind of the same level as y," Harrell said.

It took more than three minutes to explain what goes through his head in a single play. "Go x, y, f to the flat because no one is over there because they're all trying to stop this guy. And he runs right over and we complete the pass and we're about to get some yards there."

Asked in how many seconds he does that, Harrell said, "I don't know, two seconds?"

"It's funny, if you look at the way he runs his offense, it looks a little more like a basketball offense than a football offense. It's all about spacing. It's all about stretching the defense out. Even his line is stretched all the way across the field. Sometimes it's hard to tell they're an offensive line there's so much space in between them. The second thing he does is, there's kind of a socialistic impulse at the heart of his football offense. And when it comes to halftime during a game, the first thing he asks is how evenly distributed are the touches of the football across those people because he knows that if the defense doesn't know where the ball is going, it makes it much more confusing for the defense," Mike Lewis said.

[luluche45]

Ole Miss Fans- apparently you did not learn the basics in kindergarten. Learn to TAKE TURNS. This story is about Texas Tech''s Mike Leach, not Houston Nutt. When 60 Min. talks to your coach it will be your turn.
Also, 1998, I believe- Tech beat you at your house. If your team is so great why are you 8-4 and why weren''t you playing in a BCS bowl?
Stop bragging until you have something to brag about.

[squallyg04]

Scott , I was disappointed in your comments to the team players regarding you getting the short end of the stick in having to do this story. You call yourself an alumni? We Red Raiders are very proud of our instituion and our football team. The team didnt need to hear any negative comments from smucks like you. I was furious you would say such a thing. They played their hearts out this season and we are all very proud of them. I suggest you dish out a large donation to the school as an apology. We need are alumni to spritiually, emotional, financially and postively support this fine institution.

[dan400man]

fgcubaseball: Um, better take remedial spelling this semester.

[ttu1969]

Hey jlk1091, Scott didn''t mention the Cotton Bowl score because the report was filmed weeks ago...

Nevertheless, your guys played one heck of a game and deserve full credit for keeping Graham and the boys out of their rhythm. How about a re-match next year; say in the BCS Championship Game?

[drputt45]

Politics, religion and football; three conversations you aren''t gonna win.

So, everyone is entitled to and has their opinions. Unfortunately, the sports writers have another apinion that few people agree with.

[jlk1091]

While I enjoyed the story about Mike Leach, I wonder why Mr. Pelley failed to remark that Texas Tech lost to Ole Miss (the same team that beat Florida 31-30 this year) in the Cotton Bowl with a score of 47-34. Ole Miss was able to accomplish this in Coach Houston Nutt''s first year with our team. GO REBELS!

[jackas13]

Good story, but if you were really looking for the young genius of football, you have to look at Gus Malzahn, who called the offense at Tulsa for the last 2 years and had the best total offense in the country for those 2 years. Before that he was responsible for engineering the "Wildcat" and the hurry up offense at Arkansas under Head Coach Houston Nutt, until Houston felt threatened. Gus is now headed for Auburn as the Offensive Coordinator. A young man that has pulled himself up by his own genius and now is becoming known and respected, Gus would be your subject for a true genius on a shoestring budget.

[fgcubaseball]

This was a great story, I am a student athlete at Florida Gulf Coast University, and I thought our baseball team has a great story for 60 Minutes. In 2008, our baseball team won our regular season conference championship in our first season in division one and we''re not allowed to advance to playoffs do to a reclassifying period. We were preseason ranked 240something out od 260something teams. We finished our season with a 38-15 record, while setting all sorts of school and coference records on our way to a champoionship. We had 3 players chosen in the MLB amature draft in June. There is a lot of great things about our small over achieving that I would like more of America to see. Can some one email me back at [e-mail] and let me know what you think of my possible story. Thank you and God Bless

[msredraider]

It''s nice to see a story about Texas Tech that isn''t condescending for once. Believe it or not, folks, great things come out of Lubbock! [JEH, BA ''02, MS ''04]

[msredraider]

It''s nice to see a story about Texas Tech that isn''t condescending for once. Believe it or not, folks, great things come out of Lubbock! [JEH, BA ''02, MS ''04]

[critrdoc]

Great story about a good football program but I''m not sure you could call them a powerhouse just yet. RE: the good old fashioned *** whoopin'' put on them in the cotton bowl by an SEC team (Ole Miss) that lost 5 games this year.