As long as he's not HCIW I think its good news for the short term future of the program.
i agree, but you know leavitt is thinking "yahtzee" regardless of title if he does end up coming here. i mean, the defense couldn't really be any worse, so provided he improves it over a couple of years and acts crazy on the sideline, he'll endear himself to 90% of people to the point that they'll be asking for him to be the next coach. i mean crap...people wanted phil bennett for a while as head coach after he left. is the short term gain of a better defense worth the long term probability that he would end up as the next head coach?
I am trying to be positive here....but yeah you're probably right.
It all depends on how long Snyder stays.
I'll probably be in the minority on this board, but the longer Snyder stays (assuming he surrounds himself with decent coaches) is not a bad thing. Having more than two HCs in the span of four or five years can be hell on a roster, especially one that has a scholarship count down in the lower 70's. Even if all Snyder's able to do is win seven games a year and go to four lower tiered bowls in the next five years or so, that's probably where we need to go given that we've spent the majority of this decade being a subpar football program.
The hiring of Leavitt does a few things. One, it immediately brings some level of credibility to the defense. Two, it brings a competent former head coach on board to assist Snyder in the day-to-day operations in the actual 'coaching' areas Sean can't help with. You have a guy that legitimately knows what he's doing helping out. Even if it's not much, there's something to be said for bringing a guy on board with nearly a hundred career wins as a head coach and a nearly 60% winning percentage. In the event your 70 year old coach steps down unexpectedly with health issues, you'd be hard pressed to find many programs out there with a guy as decorated as Jim Leavitt sitting there in the bullpen as an interim head coach. Finally, Leavitt has a lot of connections in Florida from his years of recruiting, and he's a known quantity. Even with "the situation", which is still kind of ambiguous, he has ties to all kinds of local high schools, and USF was known for recruiting JUCOs as well, so he's got ties there too. He'd most likely be an adequate recruiter or at least be able to open doors if we were to hire one.
Snyder as a figurehead HC can go on for several years. At least another four while Tate is here assuming he doesn't have to do as much. And with Leavitt here, the odds of that happening are probably pretty good.
In five years, there will be tens of millions of dollars of improvements to the football stadium, the conference situation will most likely be stabilized one way or another, and the roster will probably be at least a little more balanced. If Snyder steps down at that time, we'd be a much more attractive option than we are now, which would in turn give us a better chance of hiring a better coach. Leavitt, in the short term, possibly makes that a reality. We just have to hope that at that time our AD (whoever it is) realizes our fan base primarily consists of mouth-breathing idiots and ignores their clamoring for one of "Snyder's guys".
