Hiring of Holtz sets a new tone for USF

This isn't a day to quibble or wonder what might have been. Skip Holtz is an excellent hire as the new football coach at the University of South Florida. There were other candidates for the job, and they were good ones, but the decision to hire Holtz should satisfy most followers of the program because he's really good.

His last two teams at East Carolina won Conference USA championships. He has spent 10 years as a head coach, which gives him the experience you look for in a job like this. But he still seems young and fresh, with the feel of someone on the way up instead of someone just bouncing to another gig.

Everyone seems to like him, which certainly won't hurt in the days ahead. He's going to need friends - lots of them - as he begins to rebuild a program shaken by the firing of founding Coach Jim Leavitt for reasons everyone is far too familiar with by now.

Of the candidates that were available, Holtz seems as close to bulletproof as anyone hired for a job like this can be. USF needed that most of all. When Holtz is officially introduced at noon today, it will turn a page in one of the most troubled periods in the history of USF athletics. And thus we have the real significance of the day.

Schools change football coaches all the time, but as we know there is much more to this move than the won-loss record. Holtz is the new coach, but he is also the new beginning for USF. He becomes a symbol of the future and a break with the immediate past.

The spotlight shifts from the muck of his deluded and deceitful predecessor. Holtz is the story now. Starting today and going forward, the talk will be more about the coach and less about depositions.

No more talk about hints and allegations, or who got choked, or who did the choking. The lawyers can play their game and argue who is lying, who changed their stories, and who ought to get sued and how much that person ought to pay. Not as many people will be paying attention, though.

Joel Miller's public declaration Thursday that Leavitt did indeed choke and slap him as was alleged? That was important because it clarifies the record of how we got here, but the story has a shorter shelf life than it would have a week or two ago. Indeed, by late in the afternoon its impact had been muted by the announcement that Holtz was coming aboard.

The formal rejection of Leavitt's appeal to keep his job by USF president Judy Genshaft? File that under "in other news ..." and move on to more interesting topics.

USF needed its recruits to hear that it has a football coach, and they will like him. Boosters and donors need someone to rally around. And the university needed a reason to stop looking over its shoulder.

There was a big-boy field of candidates for this job. In my opinion, Doug Williams would have been an excellent hire, too. Offensive coordinator Mike Canales and former USF assistant Calvin Magee had strong credentials. USF seemed locked on Holtz almost from the start, though, and the Bulls got their man.

The university regained a measure of the respect it had lost around the country with this move. Holtz is well-liked and has been on the radar of other programs for a long time. He turned down chances to coach Big East opponents in Syracuse and Cincinnati before taking this job. He wasn't so desperate to move that he jumped the first chance he got (see Kiffin, Lane).

Most everyone at this level knows tactics and football, so it comes down to the tone USF wants for its program.

Not to pick on Leavitt unduly, but he could be prickly, surly and he did some downright weird things. It was so unnecessary most of the time. The head-butting stuff was straight from the planet Zortron, for instance. He saw enemies in too many places.

Holtz is known for being open and entertaining. He'll be a positive face for a university that desperately needs one. USF will embrace him.

Things will happen fast now. There is a staff to put in place, new players to meet, and recruits to convince. There will be a lot of outstretched hands, and Holtz will want to shake them all. There will be a lot of energy around USF starting now - all of it positive.

It's a new dawn, and possibilities abound.