The pro-Leach reaction comes from those who seem willing to give the coach a pass just because he was a winner at Tech. The weird behavior, the strangeness, the insubordination he exhibited when he declined to do what his bosses wanted him to do doesn’t matter because he won far more games than he lost during his decade as head coach at Tech.

What if he had been a losing coach? What if his teams went 3-9 every year instead of 9-3? Would the Red Raider faithful have nearly as much compassion for the guy? I don’t think so.

Leach could have saved his job if he had done two simple things: accepted his suspension quietly and signed the directive that stipulated that any measure to discipline a player over an injury needed to come with a physician’s signature. He didn’t do any of that. He stuck it in his bosses’ eye — and paid the price.

From my vantage point, Leach’s employers did what employers always do when their subordinates defy them openly.

Their “mistake,” if you want to call it that, is that they canned a winning football coach whose teams filled Jones Stadium.