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An Anonymous Coward writes:

If former Division I head football coach Mike Leach was still alive, I wonder what he would think of the United States' war against Iran. Division I coaches almost never teach courses at their universities due to the demands on their time and likely a lack of interest in teaching courses. However, Leach was unique and worked with state lawmaker Michael Baumgartner to develop a five week seminar course called "Leadership Lessons in Insurgent Warfare and Football Strategy" [cbssports.com]. It was offered as a non-credit course offered in the 2019 spring semester at Washington State [spokesman.com] with the enrollment capped at 40 students. This might initially seem absurd, but due to overwhelming interest in the course, students were selected based on two essay questions limited to 200 words each:

• Can the British strategy in the Malaya insurgency be used today?
• Is the wishbone a potentially viable offense for the NFL? Why or why not?

Mike Leach's football teams often lacked size and strength on their offensive lines. That limited their ability to successfully employ a conventional offense with a balance between running and passing the ball. Instead, Leach's teams were known for using an "air raid" offense that relied on very wide offensive formations with speedy receivers spread across the width of the field and unusually wide splits on the offensive line. Defenses are often built around size and strength to try to push their opponent's offensive line backwards at the line of scrimmage and effectively jam up the middle of the field. The wide splits on the offensive line meant that the defense's strength wasn't concentrated in one small area, making it easier for the undersized offensive line to block the defenders.

Instead of trying to win the battle of strength at the line of scrimmage, Leach's system relied on quick passes to receivers who were adept at finding gaps in the defense's pass coverage. The quick passes neutralized the ability of the defensive line to pressure the quarterback. The wide splits on the offensive line opened up passing lanes and made it less likely that defensive linemen would reach up and knock down passes. While conventional offenses try to balance their running and passing plays, it wouldn't be unusual to see one of Leach's offenses pass the ball on more than 80% of their plays. Because Leach's offenses ran the ball so infrequently, the element of surprise actually made running the ball more effective because defensive linemen were trying to pressure the quarterback and would be out of position to tackle a running back carrying the ball. In effect, Mike Leach's offenses were built around taking a defense's strengths against conventional offenses and turning them into weaknesses.

The premise of Leach's course was that his air raid offense has real world geopolitical parallels in asymmetrical warfare. An insurgency doesn't attempt to match the size, technology, and firepower of a stronger military, instead adopting tactics that render those strengths ineffective. Required reading for the course included a book Leach co-authored with Buddy Levy about Geronimo. In addition to learning about Geronimo's raids against the more powerful American and Mexican militaries who drove the Apache people from their lands, reading material also included discussion of recent military tactics to counter insurgencies.

Although Leach's expertise was breaking down game film and demonstrating how a defense's strengths can be neutralized on the football field, his co-instructor Michael Baumgartner brought real world experience in Afghanistan and Iraq during his tenure in the State Department. The final assignment was to design three football plays for use in Washington State's fall 2019 game against the Houston Cougars [clarionledger.com] and also propose recommendations for American foreign policy in Yemen. While combining football strategy and geopolitics into a five week course might seem highly unusual, students evaluated the course very favorably [youtube.com].

It's unfortunate that Leach's lectures weren't recorded and distributed online. I also have a feeling that if I ever had an opportunity to play against Mike Leach in Civilization VI or VII, I'd absolutely get demolished with some very unique military strategy.

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