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Mike Leach is, without question, the most outspoken coach in all of college football. You never know what the next thing out of his mouth is going to be. You also never know what type of content he’s going to post on social media.
The Mississippi State head coach has nearly 360,000 followers on Twitter and has posted a number of memes related to quarantine and the big cancel, but he crossed a line earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Leach tweeted a photo of an elderly woman knitting that read ‘after 2 weeks of quarantine with her husband, Gertrude decided to knit him a scarf.’ It wasn’t a scarf she was knitting, instead, it was a noose.
Again, this is the head football coach at MISSISSIPPI State we’re talking about here.
Before Leach elected to delete the tweet and apologize for the offensive image, a number of his current players and an assistant professor at the university criticized him for posting it.
I sincerely regret if my choice of images in my tweets were found offensive. I had no intention of offending anyone.
— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) April 2, 2020
Last season’s team captain Erroll Thompson responded with the hand-on-the-chin, eyebrow-raised emoji while defensive lineman Fabien Lovett replied with a simple ‘WTF‘. Defensive end Kobe Jones replied to the tweet saying ‘Facts. He tripping.’ According to Inside Hook, assistant sociology professor Margaret A. Hagerman, whose Twitter account is private, tweeted at Leach saying “lynching ‘jokes’ are incredibly offensive anywhere” and “especially in Mississippi.”
Talk about a not so ideal start to Leach’s career in Starkville. The former Washington State head coach was hired by the Bulldogs on January 9.