The road from Tallahassee to Boca Raton is definitely a busy one the past week or so.
Hot on the heels of Willie Taggart officially being named as Lane Kiffin’s replacement as head coach at Florida Atlantic, we know of another staffer who is making the move from FSU to FAU and it’s a familiar name to anybody who has followed the former’s career in recent years.
Per The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, former USF head coach and long time Power Five coordinator Jim Leavitt will hook up with Taggart once again and run the Owls defense in 2020:
SOURCE: Jim Leavitt is set to become the new defensive coordinator at #FAU. Leavitt was Willie Taggart's DC at #Oregon in 2017.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) December 21, 2019
Leavitt spent 13 years in Tampa helping build the Bulls program from scratch before getting fired in 2009. After a cup of coffee in the NFL, he returned to the college ranks to lead Colorado’s defense and then became splashy hire for another USF coach in Taggart during his lone season at Oregon. After some initial success in Eugene, Leavitt was retained by Mario Cristobal when Taggart departed for Florida State but was later fired and, eventually, made his way on staff with the Seminoles this past season.
Though Leavitt was initially just an analyst under Taggart, he was elevated to an on-field role just after the head coach got the axe mid-year in Tallahassee. Now the two are back together again in a formal working capacity at FAU. Interestingly enough, one of the Owls’ big non-conference games next season is against USF in Boca so everything really is coming full circle with these two coaches starting in 2020.