Mike Leach's lament: Tech was 'too geeked up'

NORMAN — Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops insists there are no tricks to shutting down Texas Tech's explosive spread offense, which his team has done several times since 2000.

He claims there was no creative genius in his team's 65-21 rout over the No. 2-ranked Red Raiders on Saturday night before a record crowd at Owen Field.

The No. 5-ranked Sooners used a straight-forward approach.

We know this because confirmation came from the other locker room.

Sipping a cup of coffee, an impressively composed Mike Leach explained what had just transpired in front of a national television audience.

“You know exactly what Oklahoma is going to come out in,” said Leach, who was OU's offensive coordinator in 1999. “You know exactly how they're going to line up. They're going to shift around a little bit. Their scheme is the same it always is. They work on their technique and their execution. They have great technique and great execution with great athletes. They don't spend a great deal of their time trying to fool you. Offensively, we don't either.”

The Sooners held the explosive Red Raiders to 271 yards and 14 points through three quarters

Texas Tech gained 135 of its 406 total yards in garbage time, after OU had extended its lead to 65-14 early in the fourth.

Leach said his team tried hard, which was the good news.

The bad news was it tried too hard.

“Oklahoma has been in a lot of games like this. We've been in a few of them,” Leach said. “We have to learn from this experience. We wanted to win very badly, and we tried too hard, just tried too hard. We needed to relax more than we did.”

As Leach continued to get peppered with questions, he playfully took complete control of the interview session and started asking and answering his own questions.

Leach: “Oh, my gosh.

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