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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 | 
College Football Sports BYU Cougars

Mike Leach in critical condition following a ‘personal health issue’ Sunday

By Ryan McDonald Ryan McDonald
SHARE Mike Leach in critical condition following a ‘personal health issue’ Sunday
Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach looks across the field at his team during a college football game against Georgia.

Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach looks across the field at his team during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Georgia in Starkville, Miss., Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022. Leach has been hospitalized following a health issue, per reports.

Rogelio Solis, Associated Press

Mike Leach, the charismatic head football coach at Mississippi State, is in critical condition following a “personal health issue” that occurred at his home on Sunday, the school said Monday morning.

On Sunday afternoon, the school released a statement that said Leach, a graduate of BYU, had been taken to a hospital in Jackson — over 100 miles away from the MSU campus in Starkville — by ambulance earlier in the day.

Monday’s statement said, “Mike’s family is with him and appreciates the overwhelming expressions of love and support for the coach, but also requests that their family’s privacy be respected at this time.”

On Sunday night and into Monday, a flood of tweets came from some of the most notable names in college football expressing well wishes for Leach, who has become a huge figure in the sport because of both his success and his larger-than-life personality.

Here are some of the tweets that were posted sending Leach best wishes:

Leach, 61, attended BYU in the 1980s but played rugby instead of football because of injury. He became head coach at Texas Tech in 2000 after more than a decade as an assistant at several schools.

Employing the “Air Raid” offense, Leach was at Texas Tech until 2009. In 2012, he became head coach at Washington State, where he stayed until 2019.

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In 2020, he became head coach at Mississippi State.

He holds a career record of 158-107 as a head coach and has led his teams to bowl games each year except two.

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