Leach has answer for BCS haters: How about a 64-team playoff?

This was taken from Dave Campbell's Texas Football

07/29/2009
By Dennis Hall/Texas Football

IRVING, Texas -- Texas Tech coach Mike Leach has this college football playoff stuff all figured out.

Ten regular season games.

A 64-team playoff that would last six weeks.

Every team is guaranteed 12 games, whether or not they make the postseason. Bowls would be factored into the mix.

The idea might seem outrageous to many – especially since many of those playoff games would be played around final exams -- but don’t try telling that to Leach.

“There ain’t nothing unique about anything I’m saying,” Leach said. “I’m the mainstream. This other system isn’t the main stream. ... Let’s have a 64-team playoff. The champion will play 16 games. I’m not off the mark here. Everybody else does it this way. Texas high school football championship, 16 games. Division II championship, 16 games. …

“If you played 16 games, it’d be a lot of fun. If academics is an issue, then they need to cut every sport but football because football is the least intrusive on academics. But I don’t think they should cut any of them because I don’t think they’re too intrusive. “

Leach started on this tangent at Wednesday’s Big 12 Media Days because he was asked about last year’s three-way tie in the South, which was solved by a tiebreaker that sent Oklahoma to the Big 12 championship game and ultimately to the BCS championship game.

Leach had no specific qualms with the tiebreaker because it was spelled out clearly beforehand in the Big 12 rules. He’d just rather see these matters decided on a football field.

And if there has to be a tiebreaker, Leach has an answer for that one, too.

“I think it ought to be based on graduation rates,” Leach joked, knowing his school’s graduation rate is higher than Texas’ or Oklahoma’s. “I think that’d be a fair, open-minded and progressive way to do it.”

LEACH: DON’T WORRY ABOUT PREDICTIONS

Many are predicting that Texas Tech will take a step back this year with the loss of star receiver Michael Crabtree and quarterback Graham Harrell. That would include Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine, which predicted the Red Raiders will win four fewer games than last year to finish at 7-5.

Leach isn’t worried much about preseason predictions. He pointed out that nobody had ever heard of Harrell or Crabtree a couple of years ago, just as few fans today know much about their replacements, quarterback Taylor Potts and receiver Detron Lewis.

Leach said he’s not worried about Tech’s offense. He said Potts is ready to go. There’s no individual receiver with Crabtree’s skills, but he said that overall the wide receiver group has more talent and depth than a year ago.

“The only way a preseason poll is worth anything is if we’re going to cancel the season,” Leach said. “So until I get my memo that we’re going to cancel the season, I’m not going to worry about them.”

TECH’S CARTER DRAWS ATTENTION

Texas Tech lineman Brandon Carter found a way to draw the photographers’ attention Wednesday. He showed up with a Mohawk haircut and a big tattoo of a skull on the side of his head.

Add in his size (6-7, 340) and Carter presents quite an imposing presence. But he insists that’s not the point.

“It’s not to intimidate anybody,” he said. “It’s really to psyche myself out. I get all excited and get ready to go.”

Carter said he had as many as 26 body piercings in the past but has gotten rid of them over time, mostly because some were ripped out or lost while playing football.

Leach joked about Carter’s tattoos and piercings. Leach said if he had to get one, he’d get a piercing because he could always take it out if he decided he didn’t like it.

“I think he should either get a septum pierce, right in the nose, or maybe a cheek pierce,” Carter said. “I think it would help his look.”