FSU football missed on Jim Leavitt as defensive coordinator, but it may have been a blessing in disguise.
The news broke late Sunday night FSU football would not be hiring Jim Leavitt as its next defensive coordinator under Willie Taggart.
He agreed to stay in Oregon under the same title because they threw an obscene amount of money at him. The amount was an average of 1.7 million per year through 2021.
I think this is a calculated gamble on Leavitt’s part.
One one hand he got a nice raise to stay at somewhere he’s familiar, and on the other hand he could be banking on becoming the head coach at Oregon.
He has made it clear he wants to be a head coach again, but Oregon chose to hire offensive line coach Mario Cristobal instead.
If Cristobal hasn’t righted the ship at Oregon in a couple of years, Leavitt could be next in line and play the loyalty card by not bolting to FSU with Willie Taggart.
Leavitt is a proven defensive coordinator, but I’m not sure he’s worth the price tag he would have made had he come to FSU. Not to mention Oregon looked a lot like Charles Kelly was coaching them Saturday against Boise State, giving up third down conversions at a 50 percent rate (10 of 20).
Let’s look at three reasons why it’s good for FSU that Leavitt is staying at Oregon.
Short Stay
When the news began that FSU was interested in bringing Jim Leavitt on as its defensive coordinator I immediately starting thinking of how long he’d be at FSU.
As we mentioned, Leavitt made it no secret he wanted to be a head coach again soon. I understand it’s impossible to predict how long a coach will stay at a school, but this piece of information was enough to give me pause.
Why bring in a guy that clearly already has one foot out the door? I’d rather have a guy that’s maybe less proven but willing to build his resume on the back of FSU before leaving for a head coaching job.
In fact, the way Mark Stoops did it would be ideal. Stoops came to FSU in 2010 and stayed three years before leaving for the head coaching job at Kentucky.
It’s possible Leavitt could have stayed for three years, but he’s already 61 years old so his time is getting short regardless.
His Recruiting was not great
For as good as Leavitt’s ability to turn bad defenses into solid defenses, his recruiting prowess wasn’t anything to write home about.
We knock Charles Kelly a lot for his time at FSU, but at least he was a very good recruiter for the ‘Noles.
In fact, he’s the reason why several blue chip players are in Tallahassee right now. I don’t like to bring race into it, but the fact of the matter is Leavitt’s an older white guy.
The majority of FSU’s defenses or total team makeup in the past have been black or non-white players. We’ve been on record that the old regime needed to get younger and more diverse with its staff and this was one of the main reasons.
The ability to relate to these younger kids is everything nowadays. So yes, Leavitt would have been a good defensive coordinator, but you to actually get the players before you can coach them.
Was Leavitt Really Elite?
How good was Jim Leavitt really? No, this isn’t a throw dirt on him because we didn’t get him part of the piece. I legitimately thought this beforehand.
This year Jim Leavitt turned an #Oregon D that ranked No. 115 in yards per play allowed and improved it up to No. 32. At CU, his defense ranked No. 16 when he left, up 104 spots from the year before he showed up in Boulder.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) December 18, 2017
Those numbers look great on the surface but Oregon still gave up 5.07 ypp on defense and allowed 29 points per game on average. His Oregon defenses allowed touchdowns 58 percent of the time once teams got in the red zone while playing relatively weak schedule when it came to opposing offenses.
Oregon played two offenses ranked in the top 20 when it came to S&P rankings, and the next highest was No. 29. Here’s the full list below.
Jim Leavitt had a Charles Kelly 2015 yr....benefited from playing a lot of ehhh offenses....Oregon faced: FCS school, No. 81, No. 120, No. 37, No. 85, No. 57, No. 29, No. 16, No. 46, No. 23, No. 9, No. 100, No. 41 ranked S&P offenses this year...average No. 49.5 offense faced
— ChopChat.com (@ChopChat_) December 18, 2017
That’t not exactly gangbusters to be giving up 30 points on average a game.
Next: 10 Recruits Willie Taggart Can Land in 2018
So that improvement was largely a by-product of Oregon being so terrible the year (nowhere to go but up) before coupled with a favorable schedule.
I think FSU can get more bang for its buck with someone else.