Mike Leach calls Spokesman-Review’s John Blanchette a “sanctimonious troll” after Washington State loses seventh consecutive Apple Cup

Washington State University head coach Mike Leach is definitely a quote machine. Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it isn’t and Leach’s latest may go either way.

After losing his seventh consecutive Apple Cup against in-state rival Washington, Leach took questions from the media. After discussing Washington’s recruiting and noting how the media ranks their recruiting high, Leach went after Spokesman-Review’s John Blanchette after Blanchette asked if Washington State isn’t supposed to beat higher ranked recruiting classes.

Mike Leach was asked about losing his 7th straight Apple Cup, said that recruiting has to do with it, then was asked if he wasn't supposed to beat teams with bigger recruiting classes by Jon Blanchette, and then went off. Called him a sanctimonious troll. pic.twitter.com/jXmG328ZSu

— Brenna Greene (@BrennaGreene_) November 30, 2019

Leach took offense to Blanchette’s question (which was asked in a rather combative way) and after calling him a “sanctimonious troll” (which got one person applauding), Leach accused Blanchette of “never being fair or even handed” to Washington State while claiming he didn’t care what Blanchette thought.

I would argue that by reacting like this, Leach does care to a point what Blanchette thinks. And if Leach really believes that Blanchette is a troll, he kinda played right into Blanchette’s hands by having that kind of reaction.

Even if what Leach says is true, he picked the absolute wrong moment to say that. It’s one thing if the media wrote negative things about Leach and Washington State after a big win but they lost 31-13 to their in-state rival. And not only that, they lost to their in-state rival for the seventh consecutive year. I get a head coach wanting to use the media as a punching bag to deflect from their own bad performance, and Leach might have a point on Blanchette, but don’t act as if the media is doing something wrong by pointing out your bad performance in a losing effort.