TECH COACHES DRAW UP PLANS TO DIVVY UP LEACH'S DUTIES

Texas Tech already has put in place a plan for replacing suspended head coach Mike Leach on the sideline for the Alamo Bowl on Saturday night.
Since Leach has served as his own offensive coordinator throughout his 10-year tenure as head coach, someone new will call the plays and signal them in. Interim head coach Ruffin McNeill said inside receivers coach Lincoln Riley will be the primary man responsible for play-calling and offensive staff assistant Sonny Cumbie will do the signaling.
“Lincoln will be calling from the box,’’ McNeill said after the team’s practice Monday evening at Benson Stadium. “He has worked with Mike full-time. And Sonny Cumbie, who works hand in hand with Mike, who understands the offense probably as good as anybody, will be signaling in the plays.’’
McNeill, a charter member of Leach’s staff from 2000, was promoted to defensive coordinator five games into the 2007 season. If that was a whirlwind development, it was topped by the events of Monday, when Leach was suspended amid an allegation of player mistreatment and McNeill was told shortly after 3 p.m. that he would be interim head coach. Leach, McNeill and a few players traveled on the same commercial flights from Lubbock to Dallas and San Antonio on Monday, before Tech announced the suspension.

McNeill said he briefly touched base with Leach afterward.

“He said, ‘Just keep it going — keep practice going and get ready for a great week of practice,’ ” McNeill said.

The first practice cast McNeill into at least one unfamiliar role.
“Today, I was making sure the offense had some tempo going, too,’’ he said. “So they heard my voice down at that end a little bit. That was sort of fun, getting the chance to yell at those guys a little bit.’’
A handful of Red Raiders players were scheduled to be available to the media after the practice. But after the mid-afternoon announcement of Leach’s suspension, Tech media relations staff allowed only McNeill to do interviews.
Though the 51-year-old McNeill has been a defensive coordinator at Appalachian State, Nevada-Las Vegas and Tech, he said Saturday would be his first time to enter a game as head coach since a high-school job back in the mid-1980s.
“It’s been a while,’’ he said, “but I’ve been coordinating defenses for a long time as well as special teams. I feel very confident that I’ll be able to do a great job. I feel very confident in the people around me. The coaches that I work with are very professional. I’ve worked with those guys, some of them for 10, seven, eight years. We know each other from A to Z and Z to A, so I feel very confident in that aspect.’’
McNeill said after fighting through some ups and downs in an 8-4 regular season, he thinks the players will respond, too.
They worked out Monday for only a little more than an hour, a typical early game week workout, so there wasn’t much to go on. But McNeill said the signs were positive.
“This team has faced adversity, really all year,’’ McNeill said, “so they were probably a little shocked. But at the same time they did a good job of coming on the field and doing what I asked them to do. So I was proud of that.’’

Story courtesy of www.redraiders.com