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Leach speaks to Arute

COUGARS • UPDATED: 4:30 P.M.

Have a quick post for you summarizing Mike Leach's appearance on SiriusXM, talking football and what's happening with him now. Read on.

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• Listened to Leach's visit with Jack Arute on SiriusXM, a show he used to co-host. Leach said he's in Orlando with a family gathering he's planned for a long time. Then, of course, he got a job. After making a reference to Opie Cunningham (a mixture of Opie Taylor and Richie Cunningham, two roles Ron Howard played for years on TV), he went on to say his phone has blown up with half of the calls being coaches looking for work and the other half well-wishers and media members (like yours truly, a call he's not answering). ... He wants to put together his staff as quickly as possible, though some of his choices may be involved in bowl games, so he'll just try to get commitments. He has a list of people he wants, people he's worked with before but also people whose work he's admired over the years watching on film. ... Dan Hawkins, the former Boise State and Colorado coach who replaced him on SiriusXM, mentioned he was living in Boise and was available, and Leach joked he was trying to get close to him and Idaho, Idaho State and Montana were not open. ... Leach said he has received calls from other head coaches saying, please get your staff together so my phone will quit blowing up. ... There was some talk about the games this weekend, including the Pac-12 title game. Leach said he thinks UCLA has some great athletes and he doesn't know what wrong there. ... Asked about the talent in Pullman, Leach first talked about Paul Wulff and his staff and what they did at WSU, before talking about the young talent, saying the Cougars had two good young quarterbacks. Didn't mention any names. He did mention some names when talking about WSU's quarterback tradition, mentioning Ryan Leaf, Mark Rypien, Drew Bledsoe and the Throwin' Samoan, though he never said Jack Thompson's name. ... He also mentioned how much the Palouse reminds him of the area he grew up, Cody, Wyo. Called it an unique area, a pretty part of the country. Then he went back to how well the previous staff did with developing young people.

• UPDATE: Here's the story I put together from the radio show.

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• That's it from Leach. We'll put some of what he had to say in a story soon.



Vince Grippi
Vince Grippi is a freelance local sports blogger for spokesman.com. He also contributes to the SportsLink Blog.

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