Mike Leach questions how Texas spent 6 figures on recruiting visit for Arch Manning, others
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Mike Leach has some questions about Texas’ recruiting spending.
Last week, The Athletic reported that Texas spent $280,000 on the official visit weekend for Arch Manning and 8 other Longhorn recruiting targets. This week, the visit was brought up on Mike Leach’s weekly radio show. The former Texas Tech coach did not shy from sharing his thoughts on the big bill.
Mississippi State beat reporter Stefan Krajisnik of the Mississippi Clarion Ledger transcribed some of Leach’s thoughts shared on the air:
“I read that article too,” Leach said. “I have a little bit of a hard time believing it. I mean, I don’t know what they would have spent all the money on. If you’re the University of Texas the tougher thing is — oh, we didn’t mention the name did we. But just as an example. It could have been anybody. We have no idea that it was, but let’s say it was.”
Leach continued trying to figure out how the tab hit $280,000:
“Have you ever been to or heard of rooms that can eat up that much of $280,000? I haven’t,” Leach said. “Let’s make them really expensive. There’s eight recruits, hypothetically. Let’s make those rooms $3,000 a piece. Right there you still haven’t even dented it.”
“I think this is embellished,” he added. “… But I would be curious if someone managed to be creative enough to find a way to spend that much money in that period of time on that number of people. I’d be curious exactly how it was done and what they did. I have some serious, serious, serious doubts about this.”
Reported expenses included a 5-star hotel, an upscale steakhouse, a cruise on a lake, custom cakes, an ice sculpture, TopGolf and an open bar for parents. The Athletic received receipts via records requests.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
