Unfortunately, the Big Ten doesn't have a Mike Leach

I'm home from Chicago after two days of listening to Big Ten football coaches, Big Ten football players, and Big Ten football media.

Each group has its interesting and not-so-interesting people. I didn't get to every coach's table in Thursday's session, mainly because I don't like being in crowds, and there were crowds around Ohio State's Urban Meyer, Michigan's Brady Hoke and Nebraska's Bo Pelini.

But I'm not going to go off on dull or uncooperative coaches, because I didn't experience any. I had specific questions to ask of Purdue's Darrell Hazell, Minnesota's Jerry Kill and Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald, all were gracious and articulate, and what else could a sportswriter want?

However, every league should have one Mike Leach, a gruff type who treats manufactured media events with the respect they deserve, or don't. The Big Ten has no such coach in football. Whether you like Washington State's coach personally, it doesn't matter. He doesn't give answers by some by-the-numbers book that many coaches use. Here were some of his comments today at the Pac-12's football media day:

THE MODERATOR: Good morning. We will get started; we will have Coach make an opening statement for Washington State along with student-athletes, Deone Bucannon and Elliott Bosch, Washington State SID staff in attendance, Bill Stevens and Bobby Alworth. Coach, make an opening statement?

COACH LEACH: Any questions?

That alone is good enough for me. Let's not waste time with opening statements telling everyone how excited you are about the coming season. Now for selected comments from Leach:

Q. Good morning, Coach, you've been vocal in your criticism over the new targeting rule. Can you give us the specifics on what exactly is chapping your hide? And to follow that up, if you were in charge of creating a rule that limits or deters head trauma, what would be the criteria for you in establishing the rule and what would the penalty be?

COACH LEACH: I'm not the only one against this rule, rules in order to be effective have to be enforceable and you've got to be able to see it. If I get these guys across the room and I have them run full speed at each other and I ask you in a split second to tell me which one lowered their head first, I betcha you can't do it.

So I think that is a huge problem. The other thing is, you know, in one of the plays that's getting criticized, is the Clowney hit. That is why they have football and it's why football was invented and it's one of the greatest American games there is. Everything that can be done to prevent head trauma and prevent student-athletes, that needs to be done and it goes along with technology, along with teaching people to tackle properly, and things like that.

If somebody is running at you and you're going to button up to take the hit and then it becomes a guessing game of who loader their head first, which, you know, we're back to the Halo Rule where you can't sort it out and you can't discern it. I think that's a gigantic issue.

Q. Coach, we have a fan question from you on Twitter. He asks, Coach, we know you've been busy writing a book, but he wants to know what you've been reading this summer.

COACH LEACH: Honestly, mostly I'm reading that book we're writing. Books are funny things. They're satisfying, ultimately; but then, you know, there is a point where it gets tedious and you get tired of the same stuff over and over. Books almost go a little beyond even the confines of, say, a marriage. You write a book, that's there forever. There is no divorcing a book, you know? I'm preaching to the choir here, you guys all know more about this than I did. You go through the sentence, should we put the first part last, the last part first, shall we say is precise? Was this clear?

So I did a lot of that. The research is the most exciting part, discovering, you know, what Geronimo did, the existence of the Cherokee with Apaches and their skills in surviving and some of the incredible accomplishments that they had, the fiber of their culture, their spiritualism, their family relationships, so that part is fulfilling. I would love to say that there's three great books that everybody should read. We sent the Geronimo book for first edit a week ago, Buddy Levy, I'm working with Buddy on it who is on history decoded a brilliant research author and all that. We're excited about it. So when the Geronimo book comes out, you know, everybody needs to buy a copy and you ought to buy a couple of extra in case you lose the first one.

That's right, a major-college head football coach is writing a book about Geronimo.

Q. Coach, last year you had a pretty well publicized issue, what you called (players) empty corpses and zombies last season, what are you doing to ensure that everybody is buying into your system so you don't get a zombie apocalypse this year?

COACH LEACH: It's funny, this day and age people ask questions but they don't always want honest answers. In the midst of that, I mean, you know, if somebody is a zombie or corpse, I'm the head zombie or corpse. Anything with regard to a team effort or coaching, if you don't like the way your players are playing, that's about how well you're coaching, you know?

If any coach I covered used the phrase "empty corpses and zombies" to describe his team, I'd send him a Christmas card. As long as, of course, they weren't actually corpses and zombies.