NFF adjusts college HOF coaching eligibility bar

The National Football Foundation announced an accommodation to eligibility criteria connected Thursday that volition unfastened a doorway to marque Mike Leach a College Football Hall of Famer.

Leach, the precocious manager from Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State, had a winning percent of .596, conscionable abbreviated of the aged criteria that coaches had to triumph 60 percent of their games.

The caller regularisation sets eligibility astatine .595, which would besides widen caller beingness to erstwhile Oklahoma State, LSU and Kansas manager Les Miles, who has a .597 triumph percent aft 34 wins astatine LSU were vacated owed to NCAA infractions, and Jackie Sherrill, who had a .595 grounds implicit 26 seasons astatine Pitt, Texas A&M and Mississippi State.

Among progressive coaches, West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez is astatine .596. The alteration volition spell into effect opening with the 2027 NFF hallway of fame ballot.

Leach's mentor, Hal Mumme, who created the Air Raid discourtesy that Leach dispersed passim football, hailed this arsenic a large common-sense determination for a manager that ever won astatine places not galore others had done before.

"It's the lone sane happening to do," Mumme told ESPN. "Why is 60% the magic number? I mean, not everybody gets to manager astatine Notre Dame oregon Texas oregon something. Throw the regularisation retired and ballot radical successful connected merit."

Mumme said coaches should beryllium judged connected their performance, not an arbitrary cutoff. And, helium says, Leach's interaction is acold bigger than his record.

"Mike Leach was instrumental successful changing the mode shot is played, and has made it much enjoyable for fans and players," Mumme said. "He had a immense relation successful that and helium should beryllium successful the Hall of Fame."

All different eligibility requirements for coaches stay unchanged: Coaches indispensable person served arsenic a caput manager for a minimum of 10 seasons and indispensable person coached astatine slightest 100 games and go eligible for information 3 afloat seasons aft status oregon instantly if they are astatine slightest 70. Active coaches go eligible astatine 75.

"The NFF is committed to preserving the integrity and prestige of the NFF College Football Hall of Fame," said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. "This accommodation reflects thoughtful dialog with leaders crossed the athletics and allows america to amended admit coaches whose contributions to the crippled widen beyond a constrictive statistical threshold."