Michael Giberson
In the Wall Street Journal, an interview with Texas Tech University football coach Mike Leach:
WSJ: You want a 64-team playoff system. That seems crazy.
Mr. Leach: It’s only crazy if you are in Division I football. There’s nothing new about this playoff stuff. It would be like crediting me with inventing fire. I think 64 would be fun. You would cut the regular season back to 10. The champion is going to play 16 games. You would guarantee everybody 12 games for athletic budgets. Then, because it’s fun, and it would be exciting to watch people from across the country play each other, you’d pick your 64.
Then the arguments aren’t who won the national championship. The arguments are about whether the 77th team is better than the 61st team. The one thing that would be undisputable is who ever did win it had legitimately and justifiably earned it. It’s obviously workable. Any claims that its not workable because of this that and the other thing is ridiculous because they do it at every other level.
Also:
WSJ: Graduation rates as a tie-breaker?
Mr. Leach: Why wouldn’t it be? We talk about student-athletes and the rest. We have the highest graduation rate of any team in the top 25.
All in all, I found it about the most focused and coherent interview with the coach I’ve seen published.