Lubbock, Texas ? Texas Tech’s overbudget football program, which couldn’t afford to send its outgoing mail this summer, will have a balanced budget before September, athletic director Gerald Myers said Wednesday.

Fund-raising money and some of a $1.62 million payout from the Aug. 24 season opener at Ohio State will shore up a $400,000 overrun before the fiscal year ends Aug. 31, Myers said.

In recent weeks, news of the football program’s budget problems created a rift between coach Mike Leach and school administrators. But Leach and Myers said at a Wednesday news conference that they worked things out in a Tuesday meeting with school administrators.

Leach said the situation was made more difficult because he was out of town in the days after news broke that the program was denied outgoing mail privileges in May and June because it owed $5,000 to Tech’s mail service.

“With people scattered around the county and things of that nature this time of year, yesterday was a great chance to get together, and I think everybody’s headed in the same direction,” Leach said.

Leach said the move to stop his mail was detrimental to recruiting efforts in that it occurred at a time when telephone calls to recruits were prohibited.

Leach’s job performance was never part of discussions Tuesday afternoon with Tech president David Schmidly, Myers and Leach, university spokeswoman Cindy Rugeley said.

Leach said he didn’t believe the budget has affected the players or their preparations for the upcoming season and that he is putting the controversy behind him.

Myers said Wednesday he didn’t blame coaches for the shortfall.

“We knew at the beginning of the year that our budgets would be extremely tight,” Myers said. “I don’t think our coaches have been reckless with the budget.”

Less than two weeks ago, Myers said he was tired of hearing comments from some Tech coaches about how the football program’s budget compared with other Big 12 schools. The program’s operating budget was $1.2 million for fiscal year 2002, placing it in the bottom three in the Big 12, excluding salaries and scholarships.

“Well this is what we have at Texas Tech. We’re going to do the best we can with what we have,” Myers said in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on June 29. “I’m tired of hearing about what they do there. Maybe they should get a job there if they think that’s so great.”

Wednesday, Myers apologized for his comments.