Lieavitt's best coaching Staff -- Might be old but if it is delete thread

[Rizman]

I like it since they are recongizing we might have a better overall staff than last year.  I was never a fan of the play calling of Rod Smith.

This could be Leavitt's best coaching staff

By Alan Dell, USFBullsEYE.com Associate Editor – Rivals.com

Jim Leavitt is not concerned about all the changes he was forced to make in his coaching staff since last season. After working through the off season with the new group, he feels grateful for the way things have turned out.

"These guys can coach and I am trying to let them do what they do best, which is coach," Leavitt said. "They are a very passionate staff. I almost get worried about them over-coaching. I never quite had a staff of coaches that works as hard as this group. We've had hard-working coaches, but this group is really on task.

"Sometimes I might have to sit them down on two-a-days a little bit or be careful about all that because your season is your season and you don't want to play your season during two-a-days. These guys coach hard. They are grinders."

Entering his 11th year as the Bulls head coach, Leavitt can't forget what it was like during his early days at USF. When it came to his staff, things were a lot different.

Money was tight and he often had to coach his coaches. It's a far cry from the staff he has assembled for the upcoming season. He calls them grinders and admires their passion, though he sometimes worries about them being a tad over-zealous.

"In the first seven years I really had to coach the coaches because most of guys we had on the staff had never coached college football," Leavitt said. "We had about $90,000 for the salary pool for most of the coaches and that is not a lot of money, especially when you pay each coordinator $34,500. You get a little bit left for seven guys."

The staff went through somewhat of an over-haul this season with offensive coordinator Rod Smith and others leaving. USF has a new offensive coordinator, receivers coach/pass game coordinator, offensive and defensive line coach and tight ends coach.

But Leavitt loves the additions of Dan McCarney and Mike Canales, along with Mike Simmonds (offensive line coach) and Larry Scott (tight ends coach), who were made full-time staff members.

"I wouldn't name him (McCarney) my assistant head coach and I wouldn't bring him in if I didn't think he was that good. He is as good as there is. His presence has helped a lot," Leavitt said.

McCarney was head coach at Iowa State for 12 years and was the longest tenured head coach in the Big 12 when he completed the 2006 season. Canales, the Bulls pass game coordinator and receivers coach, was USF's first offensive coordinator when the program started in 1996. He has been at North Carolina State, the New York Jets and the University of Arizona.

Leavitt believes the public perception of a relativly new coaching staff can be misleading and often based on a team's won-loss record, which he thinks is a mistake. It might be especially true this season, because he expects a lot of games to go down to the wire.

"Win a bunch of games and people will say the communication is great. Lose a bunch and people will say it's awful," Leavitt said. "It might be or might not be. You just don't know because we are playing good teams. You don't know how it's going to play out. It's going to be the last minute or two minutes of a lot of games this year that is going to tell the difference."

Leavitt said he is always looking for ways to give his team a chance to win. He and his staff spent a good part of last week talking about different ways to do different things.

"The coaches are worn out with all the ideas I am sharing with them," Leavitt said. "Rod (Smith) and Greg (Gregory) were worn out last year with me putting plays in their boxes all the time. The day of the West Virginia game last year, we were up early talking about the different things we could do to stop their offense. We were successful. It worked the year before. We lost 28-13, but we let Pat (White) out of the gate. It wasn't a bad game plan. We just didn't make some tackles."