With two weeks still remaining on the college football schedule, there have been 12 head coach firings at the FBS level and more are expected to come. But what has spurred on this rapid recycling of coaches? Mississippi State coach Mike Leach believes he has the answer.

During the SEC coaches’ teleconference on Wednesday, Leach, who himself was fired by Texas Tech following the 2009 season, blamed it on trends and mental illness.

“Because people are nuts,” Leach said, via Football Scoop. “First of all, I think things go in trends. General societal mental illness, I think, and I think the other thing that contributes to it, and the same thing has happened with (athletics directors), it’s almost like there’s been a bounty on A.D.s. Then as a result there’s been one on coaches, too.

“I think that, to me, it seems like when people were all stuck at home with COVID (in 2020), they had all this nervous energy, and you saw a bunch of A.D.s and coaches fired that hadn’t coached a game for that season. [Like people said] ‘Well, we’re not doing anything so let’s fire somebody.'”