After 10 months of fruitless talks that were sometimes heated, Leach and Tech finally agreed Thursday to a contract extension that will keep him in Lubbock through 2013.

Leach met one-on-one with Tech chancellor Kent Hance for about 2 1/2 hours Thursday afternoon. They hashed out four clauses that Tech had inserted in its last offer on Jan. 9, which Leach refused to agree with by Tuesday's deadline.

Leach signed a $12.7 million, five-year contract. He was prepared to keep coaching under the remaining two years of a $10 million, five-year deal, but he also faced the possibility of being fired today during a Tech Board of Regents specially called teleconference meeting.

"Mike has a great sense of humor. I told him, 'Mike, it's fourth-and-long,"' Hance said of Thursday's meeting. "And he said, 'I go for it a lot.' But I said, 'You don't want to get sacked, though."'

Leach, coming off of his best record yet at 11-2 in his ninth season at Tech, becomes the third-highest paid coach in the Big 12, behind Oklahoma's Bob Stoops and Texas' Mack Brown.

"Me and my family are thrilled to death that we're going to be in Lubbock for another five years," Leach said. "It's become a part of our family."

The four clauses that wrecked progress of negotiations last month took Hance and Leach only about 15 minutes to resolve Thursday, Hance said.

Leach's new contract doesn't have a buyout, making him the fifth Big 12 coach without one. Tech had wanted a $1.5 million buyout. His previous contract had a $500,000 buyout.

Leach's new contract has a termination guarantee of $400,000 for each season left or about 16.5 percent of the entire deal. Tech had proposed $300,000 for each season left. Leach's previous contract guaranteed him 40 percent left of his remaining deal if he were to be terminated without cause.

Both sides agreed that Leach has to give Tech "notification" in writing if he were to interview for another job, but he won't be required to get Tech athletic director Gerald Myers' "permission" to do so, as Tech had proposed. Leach also can't be penalized for interviewing elsewhere.

Leach gets to maintain his personal property rights, as he has in his previous contract, though Tech and Leach agreed to share marketing responsibilities for him between Tech-hired Learfield Communications and Leach's IMG agents, Gary O'Hagan and Matt Baldwin.

Tech also guaranteed Leach $400,000 more annually to go toward his staff's salary pool.

The convoluted contract negotiations first became public after The Dallas Morning News filed an open records request in mid-January asking for documents involving talks between Myers and Leach's agents. On Wednesday, the drama played out nationally as Leach talked to everyone from ESPN to a local radio station in an effort to save his job.

But after an almost yearlong standoff, Leach and Tech were able to agree to a new contract with Myers and Leach's agents not in the room.

"I don't think there is any better place for Mike Leach, and hopefully he understands that," former Tech basketball coach Bob Knight said on ESPN on Thursday night.

Myers said he was glad Leach's extension is finally complete.

"To put it mildly, this has been a tough negotiation," Myers said. "And I want to say this: I said this in the beginning of the negotiations, that I wanted Mike to be our coach. I think that got lost with all the rhetoric and speculation and everything else through the process, but I've never wavered on that point. I wanted him to be our coach."

And — at last — he is.