Apple Cup win, College GameDay visit highlight Mike Leach’s tenure at Washington State

Three seasons removed from his most recent as Washington State’s head football coach, Mike Leach’s eight-year stretch in Pullman stands as the program’s most successful since the days of Babe Hollingbery.

That is a long way back : Hollingbery coached the Cougars from 1926 to 1942, when his teams went 93-53-14.

Leach, who died Monday at age 61, left WSU after the 2019 season to become head coach at Mississippi State, a position he held the past three seasons.

From 2012 to 2019, Leach’s teams at WSU went 55-47. In each of their four winning seasons over that stretch, the Cougars won at least eight games and as many as 11.

The previous eight seasons, under coaches Paul Wulff and Bill Doba, the Cougars’ combined record was 29-66.

Leach never won a conference title, but he certainly restored the Cougars to a form much more like that of the early 2000s, and he did so with an Air Raid offense that now permeates all levels of football.

But no iteration of the Air Raid has been as pure as it was when Leach has coached it, and during his time in Pullman, the Cougars embodied all of that system’s strengths and its weaknesses. It was an offense characterized by the capacity for stirring comebacks but also for prolonged droughts.

Here is a look back at Leach’s WSU tenure, one memorable game per season.

Nov. 23, 2012: Washington State 31, Washington 28 (OT)

The setup for Leach’s first Apple Cup wasn’t promising: The Cougars entered with a 2-9 record, including a 0-8 mark in Pac-12 games, and they were coming off a 46-7 loss at Arizona State.

The game didn’t start well, either, as the Huskies took a 28-10 lead late in the third quarter. But then the Cougars got on a roll, rallied for 18 consecutive points and won the game with a field goal in overtime.

It ended a three-game losing streak against their rival Huskies, but it was not, a sign of good times ahead for the Cougars: Leach never won another Apple Cup.

Nov. 23, 2013: Washington State 49, Utah 37

After starting the season with a 4-2 record, the Cougars followed with just one win in their next four games. That meant with two games left – home against Utah, then at Washington – the Cougars needed one more win to become bowl eligible for the first time in a decade.

They delivered in a big way, jumping out to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter and eventually racking up 578 yards of offense, a season high. Junior Connor Halliday completed 39 of 62 passes for 488 yards and four touchdowns.

The next week, WSU lost the Apple Cup 27-17. About a month later, the Cougars collapsed late in a 48-45 loss to Colorado State in the New Mexico Bowl. But the postseason appearance marked the program’s first since the Holiday Bowl win over Texas in 2003, and the Cougars went on to play in bowl games five of the next six years.

Oct. 4, 2014: Cal 60, Washington State 59

Arguably the greatest shootout in program history ended with utter disappointment for the Cougars when Quentin Breshears missed a 19-yard field-goal attempt with 15 seconds left in the fourth quarter, giving the Bears the victory.

The Bears and Cougars combined for 1,401 yards of offense. In the third quarter alone, each team scored 28 points, including two kickoff return touchdowns by the Bears.

Halliday completed 49 of 70 attempts and set an NCAA record with 734 passing yards (a mark matched two years later by Patrick Mahomes while at Texas Tech).

The Cougars (3-9) picked up one more win that year, at Oregon State, but after the loss to Cal they lost five of their final six, each by at least 17 points.

Oct. 10, 2015: Washington State 45, Oregon 38 (2OT)

This season began inauspiciously, with a 24-17 loss to FCS Portland State. But the Cougars got back on track in a big way with this double-overtime win over the Ducks in Eugene.

After trailing almost the entire game, the Cougars tied the game at 31 with 1 second left in regulation, when sophomore Luke Falk found Dom Williams for an 8-yard touchdown reception.

The teams traded touchdowns in the first overtime. In the second, Falk threw a 4-yard touchdown pass to Robert Lewis, and Erik Powell’s PAT gave WSU a 45-38 lead. Shalom Luani’s interception on Oregon’s possession gave WSU the victory.

WSU finished the season 9-4, including a 20-14 victory over Miami in the Sun Bowl.

Sept. 3, 2016: Eastern Washington 45, Washington State 42

Just one year after suffering a home loss to a Big Sky team, the Cougars did so again – this time to an Eastern Washington squad that would go on to win 11 more football games.

Offense wasn’t the issue for the Cougars. They racked up 515 yards and had a 5-minute edge in time of possession.

They simply didn’t have an answer for the combination of quarterback Gage Gubrud and wide receiver Cooper Kupp. Gubrud – who later transferred to WSU – had 474 passing yards and another 77 on the ground. He accounted for six touchdowns, three of which went to Cupp (12 receptions, 206 yards), including back-to-back scores in the third quarter that gave the Eagles a 10-point lead.

WSU lost its next game to Boise State but then won eight in a row to get back in contention for the Pac-12 North title. But the Cougars lost their last two regular-season games and then lost 17-12 to an undermanned Minnesota team in the Holiday Bowl. They finished 8-5.

Sept. 9, 2017: Washington State 47, Boise State 44 (3OT)

Trailing 31-10 in the fourth quarter at home, Washington State rallied with three touchdowns in the final 8 minutes to force overtime, when the Cougars outlasted the Broncos in the third extra period.

The game belonged to Tyler Hilinski, who relieved a somewhat ineffective Luke Falk. Hilinski completed 25 of 33 passes for 240 yards and three touchdowns, including two to Jamal Morrow – the first of which tied the game in regulation, the second of which won the game in the last overtime.

Washington State won its next four games, improving to 6-0. The Cougars faded down the stretch, however, and for the second straight year they lost the Apple Cup and then the Holiday Bowl, this time 42-17 to Michigan State. They finished 9-4.

Oct. 20, 2018: Washington State 34, Oregon 20

There was no other Leach-coached team in Pullman like the one in 2018, the year Gardner Minshew led the Cougars to an 11-2 record, the best single-season mark in program history.

There was also perhaps no more exciting game in Pullman during Leach’s time than this game, which drew ESPN’s College GameDay crew for the first and only time.

The Cougars jumped ahead of the Ducks 27-0 in the first half, with three touchdown passes from Minshew and a rushing score by James Williams. Oregon scored the next 20 points to draw within a score, but Dezmon Patton’s 22-yard touchdown catch with 3:40 left sealed the victory for Washington State, their fourth straight over the Ducks – one program Leach had little trouble beating.

Washington State lost a snowy Apple Cup one month later, but it earned a bowl-game victory – 28-26 over Iowa State in the Alamo Bowl – to cap the season. It was the second and the last bowl game Leach won with the Cougars.

Dec. 27, 2019: Air Force 31, Washington State 21

Leach’s time with the Cougars ended with a thud in the Cheez-It Bowl against Air Force.

Air Force threw for just 30 yards against WSU, but it gained 371 on the ground and drained the clock with four drives that lasted at least 6 minutes. The longest was Air Force’s first: a 20-play, 98-yard crawl that ended in a touchdown and consumed 12 minutes, 23 seconds.

Washington State ran 50 plays compared to Air Force’s 81. By game’s end, Air Force had held the ball for more than 43 of the game’s 60 minutes.

The Cougars finished with a 6-7 record, though senior Anthony Gordon threw for 5,579 yards, the most by a WSU quarterback and the seventh-best single-season total in Division I FBS history.