OT: ESPN story of Mike Leach's fake play scripts in 1999 RRR
Before the 1999 Texas-Oklahoma game, Mike Leach, then an assistant under Bob Stoops in his first year at OU, successfully executed a plan to drop a fake play script for the OU offense. Texas staff picked it up and fell for it, allowing OU to take a 17-0 lead. Unfortunately, Texas was able to come back and win after abandoning the fake OU offensive plan, ruining what is otherwise a delightful story. As always, Mike Leach is awesome.
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:19 AM ^
You're right, I had RRS originally but the tag available said Red River Rivalry, so I started doubting myself and changed it. The article itself says Red River Showdown so I should have gone with my gut.
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:29 AM ^
Yeah, Leach put that tag in there, too.
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
Red River Shootout then Red River Rivalry and now Red River Showdown.
Almost as bad as no longer calling the Florida/Georgia game the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.
October 3rd, 2018 at 4:14 PM ^
How come we don't get a river showdown with the PC renaming of things? I suggest we piss off the south and allow espn to rename the Little Brown Jug game to the Mississippi River Showdown. Really add some weight the Minnesota game amirite
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:02 AM ^
Now, how does one successfully drop off a script to the opposing team???
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:16 AM ^
Hire the Wake Forest radio guys and they do the rest
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:19 AM ^
I have to imagine it’d be a lot easier on the road. (I know the ou/Tex game is neutral field) I mean, one of the visiting staffers has a copy that gets left in an area where the team does its activities and knows the opposing team will occupy at some point. Problem is how obvious it would be. If you do a really good job of a fake script you would actually have a couple of real plays on there. That way they defend you well on a couple of plays, stringing them along just a little bit.
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:37 PM ^
Per the article, he had one of his backup tight ends jogging off the field after warmups in front of the Texas bench and tuck it into his pants, except "accidentally" miss his belt and drop it.
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:20 AM ^
Now THAT is communist football.
October 4th, 2018 at 3:41 AM ^
In before Bando's "Yet I have only one upvote to give"
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:31 AM ^
The British did essentially the same thing in World War II. tossed a corpse in the ocean with a briefcase full of fake invasion plans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat
October 3rd, 2018 at 11:40 AM ^
Meanwhile we tricked Hitler with balloon tanks.
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
If you want deception you should look into Agent Garbo. He was a Spanish chicken farmer who became the Britain's top spy and convinced Germany that his made up spy ring reached into every facet of WWII Britain.
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:14 PM ^
There are some bizarre facts surrounding WWII
October 3rd, 2018 at 10:41 AM ^
Mike Leach is so awesome that his awesomeness alone is just awesome.
But my biggest take-away from that story is -- that RRS had no less than EIGHT future head coaches. Leach, Herman, the current North Texas coach (who is killing it this year, and will be at a bigger program next year for sure).
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:36 PM ^
Mike Leach, please never change.
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:57 PM ^
Mike Leach is batshit crazy and I love him.
October 3rd, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^
skurnie is an MGoBoardMom now and we love him
(did I just earn some brownie points or what!)
;-)
October 3rd, 2018 at 4:17 PM ^
Miraculous 17-0 lead eventually turned to mush when the opponent woke up? Hmmmm.
October 3rd, 2018 at 4:21 PM ^
That's such a great story. I love football
October 4th, 2018 at 3:53 AM ^
Fantastic story. Glad you posted it! I read it earlier and was planning on doing the same.
Mike Leach is a treasure to CFB.