Mike Leach wouldn't care about these obituaries. Pirates play on | Toppmeyer

Mike Leach once was asked how he’d like to be remembered after he was gone. He answered in a way most fitting of this nonconformist coach.

“When people write the Mike Leach obituary, how do you want to be remembered?” Jeremy Schaap asked Leach in a 2019 ESPN profile.

“Well, that’s their problem. They’re the one writing the obituary. I mean, what do I care? I’m dead,” Leach responded through a little grin.

And so, while it may seem callous to think about what lies ahead for Mississippi State football, including a bowl game next month, it also seems fair to think Leach wouldn’t care much about the ink spilled remembering him in the wake of his death Monday night, at 61.

"The only regret I'll have is that I didn't get to do more things," the ever-curious and world-traveling Leach told ESPN for its piece.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Leach did not fit neatly into a box. He was colorful and curious and sometimes controversial and cantankerous.

Leach was a lot of things. Among them, he was a ball coach, and Mississippi State has decided it will play ball less than a month after Leach’s death.

MSU elevated defensive coordinator Zach Arnett to interim coach, and the No. 22 Bulldogs (8-4) will play Illinois (8-4) in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Jan. 2 as MSU pursues its first nine-win season since 2017.

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In a twist that seems somewhat cruel yet poetic, the bowl game will be played in Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, where a pirate ship takes residence above its north end zone.

Leach had a well-documented fascination with pirates, earning him his Pirate nickname.

MSU lowered a red pirate flag to half-mast over Davis Wade Stadium on Tuesday.

“Long Live the Pirate,” MSU linebacker DeShawn Page wrote in a tweet, which included a photo of himself with Leach.

To say this situation is unprecedented would be inaccurate, but it is exceedingly uncommon for an FBS program to endure the death of its sitting coach.

I am no college football historian, but I asked a sportswriter who has been at this a lot longer than I have if they could think of a situation similar to this – the sudden, unexpected death of an active coach – and the first comparison that came to his mind was LSU’s loss of coach Bo Rein in January 1980. Rein had been LSU’s coach just six weeks when he died in a plane crash while returning from a recruiting trip.

Joe Morrison died of a heart attack in February 1989 while South Carolina's coach, before the Gamecocks were in the SEC. More recently, and also outside of the SEC, Northwestern coach Randy Walker died of an apparent heart attack a couple of months before the 2006 season opener. Northwestern elevated one of Walker’s assistants, Pat Fitzgerald, to coach, and he’s remained in that chair ever since.

No playbook exists for how to handle these situations, but MSU is blessed to have Arnett to lean on as a familiar face for players, as they cope with this unexpected loss and transition.

Arnett had been on Leach’s staff throughout his tenure. Leach shrewdly hiring Arnett as a young defensive coordinator from San Diego State proved one of Leach’s headiest moves at MSU. Arnett’s defense has been instrumental in the Bulldogs' success, and the unit starred in last month's Egg Bowl triumph over Ole Miss.

It is premature to declare how MSU should handle filling its coaching position for the long term, but Arnett would seem at least worthy of consideration.

More importantly, he’ll provide continuity in the interim as someone who had professed an allegiance to Leach and expressed a love for State.

“I’m loyal to Coach Leach as long as he’ll have me,” Arnett told me during an interview before the 2021 season. In that same conversation, Arnett described coaching State as “a blessing” and suited to his blue-collar mentality.

On a roster as big as a football team, you can bet no player’s relationship with his coach is identical to another’s. Leach’s death leaves a void the Bulldogs never expected and for which these players could not have prepared.

The tributes poured in Tuesday.

“I will never forget everything you taught me,” tweeted Will Rogers, Leach’s starting quarterback the past three seasons.

“One of a kind. Unbelievable coach and man,” wrote veteran receiver Austin Williams. “There won’t be another Mike Leach. It’s been an honor, coach.”

Even in this era when athletes and coaches bounce from school to school, special bonds form.

Multiple players expressed their gratitude for Leach taking a chance on them when others wouldn’t.

“We love you coach,” defensive end Jordan Davis wrote, “and appreciate everything you’ve shown us.”

Leach’s friend, Michael Baumgartner, told me Tuesday that Leach’s “currency was really toughness,” and so perhaps it should be no surprise that State isn’t quitting on this season, even after the loss of its coach.

The obituaries have been written, and now Leach's pirates will take the fight to the Illini.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Mike Leach wouldn't care about these obituaries. Pirates play on