This is a crap take.
USF smeared his name so no one would give him a head coach job. He turned around more than one defense as defensive coordinator, but the head coaches he worked for got canned. That’s how the coaching profession goes, he was along for the ride of the head coach.
Leavitt’s record as head coach speaks for itself, he had one of the longest running bowl streaks as a head coach, had gotten us to be ranked more consistently, and had shown he can win on the big stage.
What he lacked was depth because he was still punching above his weight class with the talent level he was able to recruit.
Instead of firing Leavitt, If USF has announced indoor practice facilities and OCS instead, recruiting would have picked up enough to get the needed depth and this program would be in a completely different place.
In 2007 a key offensive lineman was injured at Rutgers, and our pass protection suffered which was a huge contributor to the losses we suffered after starting the season 6-0. That’s depth that could have been fixed as recruiting increases. We were upsetting teams with far more talent than us. We had elite defense but just needed the offense to get over the hurdle. Leavitt started with zero, it’s incredible where he left this program in such a short time.
We had the big crowds, we had the marquee wins, the timing was perfect to upgrade our facilities and go for an OCS to take the program higher. We just needed some more depth and some more talent on offense.
It’s not clear that investing in academics for AAU and investing in football were mutually exclusive.
Leavitt is an elite coach in my mind. Every squad he has coached has gotten measurably better by the stats and win-loss column.