MEMPHIS, Tenn. — For gameday storylines, look no further than the head coaches AutoZone Liberty Bowl.
"It's a great honor to be here in Memphis," Texas Tech interim head coach Sonny Cumbie said. "Our guys have had two good days of practice here. A lot of energy. A lot of emotion."
And that emotion goes beyond the players.
State head coach Mike Leach was fired from Texas Tech in 2010. He has claimed ever since that the university still owes him millions of dollars. He brought it up unprompted at Monday afternoon's news conference.
"I think the people there are great," Leach said of his time in Lubbock. "I think some of the leadership, at least when I was there, was very sleazy, slimy, and dirty."
"There were four bad apples that were determined to cheat me out of my salary and the last four years on my contract, and then continued to hide the documents illegally," Leach continued, adding that he wouldn't rule out that criminal charges should be pursued. "But short of that, I thought everybody was great."
He'll face the Red Raiders for the first time since his firing on Tuesday.
Cumbie played for Leach at Texas Tech, initially coming aboard as a walk-on before earning a scholarship.
"As a head coach, he took the time to meet me in the parking lot and show me around," Cumbie recalled from his senior year of high school. "Not a lot of head coaches would do that, especially nowadays."
He would eventually earn the starting quarterback job, guiding the Red Raiders to a Holiday Bowl win over an Aaron Rodgers-led Cal team in 2004. Leach brought him back to Texas Tech as a grad assistant in 2009, jump-starting his coaching career.
"The thing that I take from him is belief in what you do," Cumbie said. "How you structure practice, how you set up your offense. Those are the things that I take from him as a coach."
Tomorrow marks Cumbie's final game with the program before he becomes the head coach at Louisiana Tech.
"That's what I want our kids to do tomorrow night. To play with a lot of energy, a lot of passion, and all of those things with a sense of focus and execution to what you're trying to do game plan-wise."
The 63rd AutoZone Liberty Bowl kicks off Tuesday at 5:45 p.m.