Nebraska:

Frank Solich coached the Nebraska Cornhuskers from 1998-2003. He directed the Cornhusker program to six consecutive bowl games, including the national championship game in the Rose Bowl following the 2001 season. Nebraska won at least nine games in five of those six seasons, and finished among the top 10 teams in the nation three times. Solich compiled a 58 – 19 record at Nebraska.

After a 7-7 season in 2002, the Huskers’ worst record since 1961, Solich shook up his staff. He gave up offensive play-calling duties to newly hired offensive coordinator Barney Cotton and brought in Bo Pelini, the linebackers coach for the Green Bay Packers, as defensive coordinator. 2003 began with Nebraska starting out 5-0, before suffering three key losses later in the year; 41-24 to Missouri, 31-7 to Texas and 38-9 to Kansas State. After the final game of the regular season, Solich was fired by new athletic director Steve Pederson, who justified the move by stating he would not “let Nebraska gravitate into mediocrity” and would not “surrender the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas”. He was succeeded by Bill Callahan as head coach.

Texas A&M:

In December 1988, R.C. Slocum was named head coach at Texas A&M. During his 14 years as head coach, R.C. led the Aggies to a record of 123-47-2, making him the winningest coach in Texas A&M history. During his career, Slocum never had a losing season and won four conference championships, including the Big 12 title in 1998. Additionally, he led the Aggies to become the first school in the Southwest Conference history to post three consecutive perfect conference seasons. Slocum reached 100 wins faster than any other active coach. Slocum was named SWC Coach of the Year three times during his tenure as head coach. His “Wrecking Crew” defense led the SWC in four statistical categories from 1991 through 1993 and led the nation in total defense in 1991.

Slocum continually pressed Texas A&M to update the athletic facilities so that the university could compete with the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Oklahoma in football recruiting. The university officials finally listened to his pleas and began a large facility expansion project. Unfortunately, this was too late to save Slocum. He was fired in 2002 after a 6-6 season, which included a win over number-one-ranked Oklahoma. He was succeeded by Dennis Franchione as head coach.

Borrowed from wiki here, and here

Please, Tech Fans, let’s set our expectations too high and make the mistake that these two schools did.

The thing with Leach is that he has done very respectable things with very marginal talent. You can say a lot of things about Leach, but you cannot say that he hasn’t made this program better. I think we can all agree that there has been a steady improvement every single year that Leach has been here. Leach is just now put Tech in a position to recruit solid talent and put athletes in position on offense and on defense.

Getting rid of Setencich will do wonders for this program in my opinion. Ruffin McNeil is a great coach, and an even better motivator. Those guys on defense are fired up to be out there, and they have an attitude now that they never had when Setencich was the DC.

Having said all that, I do think that this year’s success will determine Leach’s future with the Texas Tech program. If we have another mediocre 8-4 season with all the big expectations, I think Leach may try his luck elsewhere or may be forced to. I don’t think that will be a problem though. This is our breakout year, and I expect 10 or 11 wins.

Good points, I agree with almost all of it. But you can’t seriously think that firing Leach after a (mediocre?) 8-4 season is a good thing. Baylor, Okee St., KSU, Nebraska, ISU, Colorado, and A&M would all piss their collective pants for an 8-4 season (as would 75% of the football programs out there).

Leach is just now put Tech in a position to recruit solid talent and put athletes in position on offense and on defense.

Do you think if Leach leaves or gets fired that those athletes are still going to come here?
If you do then you didn’t read my earlier post. If you do then you need to talk to the football fans and former recruits of the University of Hawaii.

We need to give Mike Leach 4-5 more years to “recruit solid talent” before we can seriously contend for a Big 12 title in my opinion. Being overly optimistic and setting our expectations too high is not only foolish, but could bring disastrous consequences like it did for Nebraska and A&M.

leach is the absolute best coach we can have atm. Who would we get to replace him? there are no guarantees and we can’t attract a big name with big aspirations. On the opposite side, Leach won’t be offered a job elsewhere until he can put together a 10+ win season and I think that once he puts that 10 win season together here, there’s no reason for him to go elsewhere to start all over again.

USC may be the only school that can pull leach from tech.

Mike Leach leaving Texas Tech (on his own terms) after this year is more likely to happen then Texas Tech leaving Mike Leach. If Tech has a great season (A BCS bowl appearance) and a bigger program comes suiting, we may have to face the fact that our fearless leader could be shopping top-tier programs after this year.

And I don’t think USC would go after Leach. They can have they’re pick of the litter, and that usually means coaches from top-tier programs and former NFL coaches. I see him landing in the SEC, Big 10 or ACC before the Pac-10.

...bail for greener pastures if we make a BCS game. So if you like the pirate, hope for another 9-3 year.

He’s a consistent job inquirer and would have no qualms leaving LBK, no matter how much he professes to love it. He has zero ties to Texas. If a guy like Rich Rodriguez can leave WVU (born, raised and played for) for Michigan, there’s no doubt Leach could leave for, say, Washington. He’d be a great fit there…a quirky coach, a quirky city, a college football mad city, a MUCH deeper football tradition, not as far from good surfing. Food for thought.