What could have been?

[KOdawg1]

For discussion and pure boredom purposes, what would have happened had we hired Mike Leach originally instead of Joe Moorhead?

At the end of 2017 when Dan left us, Mike was coming off a 9-3 season at Wash St. He lost his bowl game to Mich St, so he finished with a 9-4 season. His record the previous two years plus that year was 26-13 (9-4, 8-5, 9-4). Granted, his 11-2 season came the next year, so we wouldn't have known he was capable of pulling off a top tier season like that, but the general direction he had Wazzou going was up. He had shown he could win at a difficult place (again), and I think it would've been viewed as a solid hire.

Our 2018 team went on to have the #1 defense in the country that year, so it's safe to say Mike would've inherited the best defense he had ever had by far. The only kink in the whole thing would be having Nick Fitzgerald as your QB in an air raid offense. But when you go back and look at Mike's 2018 season at WSU, what made it so special? It was a well-traveled, underrated grad-transfer named Gardner Minshew who grew up 2 hours from Starkville and would've literally given his left nut to play for MSU. Is it crazy to think that if Mike Leach and Gardner Minshew arrive in Starkville during the spring of 2018 that we have a similar season that WSU has (11-2) or even better? We would have avoided the soft culture Joe instilled. We would have had a competent offense to go with our elite defense. The only knock I can find is our lack of WRs. But if you pick up a grad transfer or two, that can be fixed. Food for thought.