Leach quirky but knows how to coach

A sports columnist in San Diego years ago had the nickname of 6-4-3. Now retired, he was a supreme rally-killer when it came to asking bizarre questions during group interviews that otherwise were running in a fluid and interesting manner.

An athlete could be weeping at the remembrance of a dead relative, and 6-4-3 would inquire about a second-half fumble.

So it went that on a December evening in 2004, minutes after Texas Tech upset California 45-31 in the Holiday Bowl and Mike Leach was explaining his team's victory in an animated fashion, that 6-4-3 offered this:

"I noticed you guys threw the ball a lot. Is that normal for your team?"

I sort of wished Leach had gone all Norman Bates on the guy.

Or at least have quoted some frightening line from "Psycho."

You don't think of college football coaches as eclectic but rather mere recluses loyal to the next practice or film session. Leach is different. He is a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock and is said to be studying Geronimo, which I'm guessing a majority of his peers believe is a new term for the spread formation.

I wasn't at Texas Tech and never stood in a dark electrical closet with Adam James, so claims of how Leach allegedly treated one of his former players for having suffered a concussion are just that in this space.

The coach's lawsuit against ESPN for defamation remains pending, and the courts ultimately will write a final chapter about his forgettable departure from Lubbock.

My guess is that those in Pullman, Wash., aren't waiting by their computers for a final ruling. My guess is they couldn't care less.

They're too busy buying tickets to support a program that hasn't known a winning season since 2003, too excited one of the great characters to stalk a college sideline is in charge of making a rural campus with an athletic department budget defined by pennies more than dollars relevant in the biggest sport.

UNLV plays Washington State tonight at Sam Boyd Stadium, and if you believe the pregame chatter about projected attendance, there's every chance it will look and feel and sound like a home game for the Cougars.

Some of that has to do with the Rebels being 0-2 and coming off a horrible loss to Northern Arizona, which this week plays someone named Fort Lewis, whose quarterback probably is named MacArthur.

Some of it has to do with the game on a Friday, which means prep football, and that means many families that might have considered attending the UNLV game won't.

Some of it has to do with Leach and those Washington State fans who will follow him and their team here.

Leach doesn't have the sort of offense that produced more video game numbers at Texas Tech than anything EA Sports has going, one that helped lead the Red Raiders to 10 bowls in 10 seasons before he was fired in 2009.

But his first Washington State team still has averaged 41 pass attempts in two games. He still likes his quarterback to chuck it around a lot, which could prove dangerous for a UNLV secondary that I am not certain could cover me.

"We haven't proven anything," Leach said. "We haven't done anything. We have to play at our best, which we haven't done yet this season."

It was a chance Washington State took when others passed, hiring for a program that has done little of significance other than a nice run in the early 2000s a 51-year-old head coach who sued his former employer for breach of contract and who was dismissed amid those charges of mistreating a player.

The Cougars also hired a man who has won everywhere he has been, either as an offensive coordinator or head coach, from Iowa Wesleyan to Valdosta State to Kentucky to Oklahoma to Texas Tech.

A man transfixed with pirates, who can turn any football lesson with players into his own personal history tutorial.

"I had heard a lot about him before he was hired but didn't want to make any assumptions until meeting with him one-on-one," redshirt freshman Darryl Monroe said. "He definitely has a quirky way of putting things. He gives you a different perspective on things."

Leach is quirky, all right, but few are those moments considered dull when his team has the ball or he a captivated audience.

Bottom line: He's the last coach you would want around 6-4-3.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on "Gridlock," ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.