A couple of things....
First, Mike Leach was brilliant, cranky, whimsical, endlessly talkative, and everyone at WSU is grateful to him for putting us back on the football map after a few years of utter futility. I'm sure the folks at Tech and MS State share that feeling. Wherever he went, the team immediately became a factor in its conference. His coaching tree will go on; in fact, the coaches at two of the three universities I've worked at have backgrounds in the Air Raid. Leach was a sometimes unnoticed force that affected all of college football. R.I.P.
On a different topic....after yesterday's bowl game, I realized that the timing of the transfer portal opening is destroying the bowl season. My alma mater looked awful in a defeat yesterday, but they had lost 11 starting and backup players to transfers, and three assistant coaches had left. The team on the field bore little relationship to the one that played the season. I really hope that they change the rules and don't open the transfer portal until after the end of the bowl and championship season.
I think the effect is probably most pronounced on middle-of-the-pack teams that lose their top talent to the portal. I don't see the point of playing bowl games after the top players on a team leave; you're not seeing the team that actually played the season.
I know that those mid-pack teams have a shot at getting equally good players from top level teams that have really good backups who want a chance at starting - but they don't show up until the next year. The reduction in team quality at the season's end really reduces the attraction of bowl games. I've already heard many comments from people saying they won't bother to travel to a bowl game if the top players from the team have left for the portal, and I don't blame them.