Mike Leach Spent A Couple Of Minutes Rambling About Cardboard Cutouts Of Fans During An Absolutely Vintage Tangent

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Unless you’re a huge fan of tired sports clichés and people dodging questions from reporters in pursuit of a juicy soundbite, it’d be a huge stretch to label question and answer sessions with football coaches “appointment viewing”—unless the coach in question is Mike Leach.

During his time at the helm at Washington State, Leach earned a reputation as one of the most entertaining figures the college football world has to offer thanks to his tendency to spend minutes rambling about every topic under the sun during press conferences and interviews, whether it involved sharing his thoughts on the evils of candy corn, speculating about what’s really going on in Area 51, and doling out some marriage advice in a legendary sermon.

Leach decided to take his talents to Mississippi State after the end of last season and the hype train officially left the station after he kicked off his tenure with an upset win against LSU over the weekend, which led to him literally hopping on a bandwagon and inviting fans to join him.

After the Tigers saw their quest to repeat as national champions hit a bit of a snag, Louisiana’s attorney general directed some of the blame at the state’s governor for limiting the number of fans allowed inside the team’s stadium, as capacity was limited to 25% and it appeared the people in the stands were outnumbered by the cardboard cutouts schools have turned to in an attempt to compensate for the lack of actual spectators.

On Monday, Leach spoke with reporters for 30 minutes and spent almost two of them opining on this fairly surreal stopgap in a vintage tangent where he compared the trend to an episode of The Twilight Zone (which featured multiple installments that revolve around scenarios where people are frozen in time) before pondering the factors that determine which fake fans get the best seats.

Never change, Mike. Never change.