updated 12:14 a.m. ET Sept. 3, 2005

LUBBOCK, Texas - Texas Tech coach Mike Leach shuffles into his office in bare feet and long green denim shorts, a gallon jug of water in one hand and a plastic foam box full of dinner in the other.

The mastermind of college football’s most prolific passing attack settles in to eat and discuss the finer points of his offense, but he doesn’t have a fork.

No problem. He picks up a chicken breast and tears off bite-size bits by hand. Later he tries to balance some stuffing on a plastic knife, but it falls off, so he scoops up a hunk in his hand. When the meal’s finally over, he reaches for a nearby white towel and wipes his face.

“I don’t know where this towel has been,” he says with a scowl.

Leach attacks the meal much the same way he goes after defenses: He is unorthodox. He improvises. And he is effective.

Under Leach, Tech has led the nation in passing the past three years, set or tied 40 NCAA records and gone to a bowl game every year since 2000. Along the way, he’s developed a reputation as one of college football’s more colorful characters, thanks to a wild passing game, a relaxed approach to the job and some odd comments.

In the coaching world, he’s a unique blend: A kooky guy who keeps things fun and a serious tactician who demands perfection.

“I think he’s popular in the coaching community because he is different,” said Sonny Dykes, his offensive coordinator. “You’ve got a guy here who’s not afraid to do what he wants and doesn’t care what anybody thinks. I think sometimes they think he’s crazy, but crazy like a fox.”

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Leach shrugs off such talk, wondering why anyone thinks twice about a coach with a law degree whose teams regularly score more than 40 points without much regard for running the ball.

“I think everybody has idiosyncrasies,” Leach said. “You just do your deal and constantly figure out a way to do it better.”

The appearance of Tech’s offense alone is a mold-breaker, with five receivers darting every which way. Some teams run variations of it, but none with the success of the No. 21 Red Raiders.

Tech’s last three quarterbacks each led the nation in passing. The only one not to set an NCAA record helped put up 70 points in 2½ quarters against TCU last season, then a few weeks later hung 70 on Nebraska for the worst loss in the Cornhuskers’ 114-year history. The Red Raiders capped the season with a 45-31 upset of California in the Holiday Bowl.

Leach isn’t the type of offensive guru who scribbles out thousands of plays or keeps a computer database of formations. It’s quite the opposite.

He worries that he’s not organized enough and that his handwriting is too sloppy. He’s such a procrastinator that he had to pull an all-nighter to get ready for the arrival of this year’s freshman class.

He usually rolls into work around 11 a.m. and believes in focusing only on “stuff that counts.” So he jokes a lot during practice and refuses to have a dress code, which sometimes leads to ragtag scenes at airports. He also could care less whether “somebody’s got some really goofy haircut” unless it gets in the way of his assignments.

“Then I’ll cut the hair myself,” he said.

When asked to describe Leach, players usually use words such as smart, easygoing and different — the latter sometimes accompanied by a chuckle.

“He does joke around a lot, but at the same time he’ll dog-coach you when he has to get his point across,” said Houston Texans backup quarterback B.J. Symons, who passed for an NCAA-record 5,833 yards in 2003, his only season as Tech’s starter. “He does a good job of mixing together his coaching styles.”

Leach is famous for rambling answers to questions, veering into an endless range of topics. At this summer’s Big 12 media day, he turned a football question into a treatise on Kentucky Fried Chicken’s secret recipe.

“He goes on and on,” receiver Danny Amendola said. “They may make a point and they may not, but in the end it’s a good story.”

Characters in his stories can be real, fictional or even animals. One of his favorites is a slightly off-color anecdote regarding an ongoing feud between a couple of dogs.

“He likes telling stories about pirates and different kings and stuff in history,” Symons said.

Sometimes Leach makes it up as he’s going along.

“He’ll look at a player’s demeanor on film and decide what the player had for dinner and how he’s feeling and what his girlfriend told him last night,” Dykes said.

Following their boss’ lead, Tech coaches can be heard laughing at times when the only sound coming out of most coaching offices would be whirring projectors. Leach also lets everyone make suggestions about running the offense, although there’s no doubt he controls it.

And he does it in a surprisingly simple way: old-school repetition. It turns out that Leach’s wild offense actually is about 20 plays that are run over and over. The idea is to go through them quickly and to distribute the ball evenly, exploiting mismatches.

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