What a Mess

Hope everyone is staying warm during this cold snap here in Florida and everyone around the country as well. I have been getting a lot of questions about the Jim Leavitt firing so I am going to take a few minutes to go over what has happened, why he was fired and what the Bulls are going to do next.

Leavitt has been accused of slapping a player, Joel Miller, but Millers stated later that Leavitt did not do this. His father is also saying he did not do this, yet reports still come out about Leavitt in the locker room and his insane attitude. He headbutts players and is very intense, yelling and most likely this can cause some hatred in the lockeroom by players that do respond to this type of coaching. So the issue was Leavitt was accussed and he stated he did not, so who really knows the true story here. The second report was that Leavitt throw out the personal belongings of Colby Erskin, a RB that has been injury plagued and seems to have a grudge against Leavitt. He was the one who broke the story of the slap to AOL fanhouse (not the most respected sports coverage out there to say it lightly) and said that he knew it was Leavitt that threw out his belongings, yet was not in the lockeroom at the time and Leavitt denies it. Reports say that Leavitt hated Erskin because of his attitude and him leaving the team and then coming back. There is more to this story but the truth will most likely be never known. Reports also say that Leavitt had his players lie to cover his story and his attitude towards the athletic department led to hard feelings about if he should remain. Fans have wanted him gone because of his failures to take the team to a higher level and seems to have peaked.

Leavitt started the program and in 13 years has put it in a BCS conference and ranked the last 3 years and two straight bowl wins, for this he must be congratulated for doing this. No Leavitt, No USF football program, it is simple as that. But the case is a messy one and most saw it coming because the investigation was ongoing and if it had been a simple case, it would have been over very fast. So what do the Bulls do now? Carl Franks is interim head coach during the recruiting period, which is going to be bad with players leaving because Leavitt is gone and will shake things up. Many names are being thrown out their, Dan McCarney has been mentioned, the defensive line coach at UF, was the same position at USF when Selvie came into fame. Offensive coordinator names are being thrown out there, from West Virginia all the way to Michigan State. Maybe Charlie Strong, the new coach at Louisville. Maybe John Gruden or one of the Bowden sons, who knows at this point. The story is still on going so stay tuned for more updates.