Coach Jim Leavitt Is The Backbone Of USF Bulls Success

No doubt the Big East is the promised-land of college football, an oasis where previously unknown football teams can climb to ranks to find a home in the Top 25 - like the University Of South Florida’s Bulls, a football program that did not even exist a decade ago. USF’s Cinderella-story rise to college football contenders has been helped along by many factors, but few can argue much of the credit goes to the drive, talent and unwavering faith of Bull’s head coach Jim Leavitt.

To fully appreciate the Bulls/Jim Leavitt success story, you have to understand their humble beginnings. USF’s ascension from 1-A startup to the Top 25 (and subsequently top 5) is the fastest in NCAA history, surpassing Boise State's by 7 weeks. Since the inaugural season in 1997, Bull’s head coach Jim Leavitt has guided the team through the I-AA ranks into Division I-A, into Conference USA and finally into the Big East Conference. Only 8 years after the program’s inception, the team played its 100th game and first bowl game in North Carolina at the Meineke Car Care Bowl. One year later, Leavitt led the team to its first ever bowl win in the Papa Johns Bowl against East Carolina University on December 23, 2006.

Coaching for South Florida is literally coming home for Leavitt, a St. Petersburg native. Leavitt was a star quarterback for Dixie Hollins High School and later graduated from the University Of Missouri in 1978. His first coaching job was at the Univeristy of Dubuque, where he spent two years serving as defensive coordinator. Following Dubuque, Leavitt spent one year as special teams coordinator at Morningside College, where he was eventually promoted to defensive coordinator. After a brief stint at the University Of Iowa (where he pursued a doctorate in psychology), Leavitt landed at Kansas State in 1990 where he spent two years as linebackers coach, followed by four more as defensive coordinator, leading Kansas State from relative obscurity to having a highly respected defense. In 1996, Leavitt became the first and to date the only head coach for the University of South Florida’s Bull football team.

Leavitt’s intense demeanor, which contrasts with his youthful looks and spiky hair, is legendary. Leavitt is so fiery that USF linebacker Ben Moffitt recalled Leavitt once busting open his nose and bleeding profusely after head-butting a player’s helmet in attempt to fire up the team during practice. Asked at his first press conference where he would live, the Type A Leavitt calmly replied, "In my office." Leavitt is also known to run each set of wind sprints with the players during practice and to work in his office well past midnight nightly, slugging Pepsi by the 2 liter and sometimes sleeping on an old vinyl couch.

Leavitt's insuperable work ethic and keen football knowledge has undoubtedly fast-tracked USF‘s success. His on-field success, drive and dedication to the university have produced significant improvements in athletic facilities, such as a new athletic training center that includes an Academic Enrichment Center for student athletes, new administration facilities, and new practice fields for the football team.

Despite being courted by many teams looking for a dynamic head coach, Leavitt has never wavered in his commitment to USF and it‘s football success.

Ben Moffitt - The Workhorse Of The USF Bulls Defense

By: S Dean: Bulls linebacker Ben Moffitt is known as a work horse of the Bulls’ defense, with interceptions becoming his specialty. At 6-foot-2, 230 pounds this junior is anything but typical both off and on the field. Through high school and college football, Moffitt has always excelled athletically, academically and personally, in large part to his strong work ethic.

Moffitt has cultivated his muscular frame over many years, not all of it on the football field. Since the age of 7, he’s helped his father take down trees for his father’s tree service.

In high school, Moffitt broke the state weightlifting record for his weight class in the clean-and jerk category when he lifted 330 pounds. He also managed to make all-state as a high school junior even though he missed the season’s initial two games as he considered a commitment to the ministry.

Although Moffitt was courted by N.C. State, South Carolina and Florida, he couldn’t bring himself to move far away from his home - rural Sumter - and his beloved family. Moffitt is a married father of two who commutes 110 daily miles to campus, maintains a full course load and a 2.5 grade point average. Moffitt and his wife of three years, Shauna, met when he was a freshman in high school and married when he was a senior. They are the parents of 5 year old Trevor and 3 year old Rylan.

Moffitt’s schedule sometimes requires that he leave his family prior to 6 a.m.. He typically arrives home after practice around 7 p.m. During winter workouts, he leaves as early as 3:30 a.m. and arrives home as late as 7 a.m. after a road game.

But Moffitt will tell anyone the schedule and the hard work are all worth it, as football and family are the two great loves of his life and he clearly excels at both.

USF Bulls Quaterback Matt Grothe Bio

By: S Dean: Matt Grothe is currently the sophomore quarterback of the USF bulls. 6 feet tall and weighing in at 200 pounds, Matt is a Florida native who grew up in Lakeland and played for Lake Gibson High School, where he was a two-time state player of the year. Playing the position of quarterback for the entirely of his football career (which started in early childhood), Grothe grew up idolizing scrambling quarterbacks like Steve Young, Troy Aikman and Brett Favre.

Grothe was the most prolific freshman in the 2006 season, earning approximately 250 yards of total offense per game and contributing to 24 touchdowns. Grothe was the Big East’s third leading passer in 2006 and is a big reason that the Bulls are making a run at a national title this year.

Although Grothe had no shortage of college offers when he graduated from Lake Gibson High School (one of which was to play defensive back at Penn State), Goethe chose USF because he wanted to be part of what he knew would be USF’s football history.

Grothe is admittedly superstitions - repetitively wearing sweat bands up near his biceps during every game. He used to be obsessive about an Indianapolis Colts undershirt he wore during every game from 5th grade through his senior year of high school, but his Lake Gibson coach made him burn the shirt, so now he never wears an undershirt at all.

Grothe used to tape his left fingers, but he forgot to tape them before 2006’s 37-20 win over North Carolina. So he’s started a new practice of not taping his fingers at all and it certainly seems to be working for him.

By all accounts, Grothe is a humble, hard working young man, repeatedly stating he’s just happy to be playing for a Division I team. Undoubtedly, he’s not the only one who‘s ecstatic he's here.