Leavitt fiasco may cast shadow over new USF coach

The University of South Florida will soon have a football coach to replace Jim Leavitt, even if there are as many lawyers crawling around Fowler Avenue right now as there are football players.

East Carolina coach Skip Holtz seems to be getting lots of attention and he certainly fits the profile of what athletic director Doug Woolard should be looking for. Holtz has a fine reputation, is accomplished as a head coach with back-to-back titles from Conference USA (Leavitt never managed to win one league title, for what that's worth), and appears ready to move to the next level.

Whoever gets the job, presumably he'll be in place in the next day or two and we can all get on with our lives. Except that Jim Leavitt has no such intention. He has hired lawyers to get his job back and it's game on.

It won't work, of course.

It will never work.

Jim Leavitt will never coach football at USF again.

He might get some money out of it, though - the difference between the approximately $66,000 in severance pay USF has said he'll receive versus the $7 million or so his contract calls for in the event he is fired. Because investigators determined he did a bunch of bad things, USF says his termination is "with cause" and won't pay the $7 million.

I'm not about to make a legal argument either way on that.

What I will say is this: When Skip Holtz, Calvin Magee, or any of the other potential successors come to town, better bring a thick skin, lots of patience and an understanding that this could be the mother of all ugly situations - as if it isn't already.

It's not like the new guy will come in, smiling for the photo op and wearing his USF cap, and everything will suddenly be better. This is a big-boy job with big-boy applicants and they all have their eyes wide open. As distractions go, though, this could be a doozy.

If Leavitt isn't in a mood to settle for a large payout and wants to take this to court, imagine the scene. Players could be summoned for depositions about what they saw or didn't see. There are already conflicting stories about what happened or didn't happen in the locker room at halftime of the Louisville game. Some players say they saw Leavitt put his hand on the neck of walk-on Joel Miller and slap him twice; others say it never happened.

Imagine the fodder lawyers can make with that.

It really comes down to what you believe. USF believes Leavitt acted inappropriately and fired him. Lawyers can really be very persuasive for their clients, though. They can drag this out - and each new headline, each new leak, and each new revelation will be bad news for Leavitt's successor.

That will be an enormous shadow over the football program, as if things weren't already cloudy enough.

This has the potential to split the locker room, too. Leavitt clearly has players loyal to him and the new coach will have to overcome that. If the new coach starts installing offensive or defensive systems the holdover players don't like, that's another potential problem.

I mention all this only as a cautionary tale.

We all know Jim Leavitt. This is the man who turned down Alabama - twice - to stay at USF because he created the program. I personally think he blurred the lines of reality in the last few years and deluded himself into thinking he was bigger than the university, but whatever.

The man seems determined to fight.

He won't get his job back and he is smart enough to know that. He can keep things unsettled for a long time though, especially if vengeance against the people who fired him is part of his game plan.

Yes, there will be a new coach prowling the sidelines next season at USF. It sounds like Leavitt plans to be right there with him, looking over his shoulder every step of the way.