By KACE KIEISCHNICK, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
The 2026 LSU Tigers will go as far as redshirt junior quarterback Sam Leavitt’s right
arm and legs can take them.
Fortunately for Lane Kiffin and the Tigers, Leavitt was the No. 1 prospect in the transfer
portal and has a proven record of excelling in year one in a new program.
Unfortunately, one of those legs is attached to a right foot that underwent Lisfranc
surgery last year and had the screws removed in April. Leavitt, though, knows how to adjust.
This season, Leavitt enters the third school of his collegiate career and sixth since 2019.
The four-star high school prospect began his prep career at Westview High in Portland,
Oregon. As a sophomore, his family moved to Pleasant Grove, Utah, where he
completed 103 of 196 passes for 1,672 yards and 17 TDs in 11 games.
A new home, a new Sam Leavitt.
He then moved back to Westview as a junior and led the Wildcats to a 9-2 record with
2,033 passing yards and 26 touchdowns, but his Westview team was eliminated in the
second round of the Class 6A Oregon High School playoffs.
Time for another change of scenery.
Leavitt transferred to West Linn High School for his senior season in 2022 and finished
with a 12-1 record and the Class 6A state championship. He threw for 3,184 yards and
36 touchdowns and racked up 693 yards and 8 TDs on the ground.
He was named MaxPreps Oregon High School Player of the Year and Gatorade Oregon
Football Player of the Year while being ranked as high as the No. 76 recruit in the class
of 2023. He committed to Michigan State and redshirted as a freshman, appearing in
just four games.
But this mobile gunslinger was not done scrambling. Again, a new school welcomed an
improved Leavitt.
This time it was an Arizona State team that started three different quarterbacks the year
prior. He led the Sun Devils to an 11-3 campaign, Big 12 title and the school’s first
College Football Playoff appearance in the 2024 season.
In 13 starts, Leavitt completed 61.7 percent of his passes for 2,885 yards, 24 touchdowns and six interceptions. He ran for 433 yards and five TDs on 110 carries and was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year and second-team all-conference.
In the Big 12 championship game, Leavitt completed 12 of 17 passes for 219 yards and three TDs and ran for another touchdown in a 45-19 win over Iowa State.
“Sam’s good. Sam’s really good. I keep saying it,” then-Arizona State coach Kenny
Dillingham said late in the 2024 season. “Sam’s really good, and we should be really
happy that we have Sam, and we have him for two to three more years. I mean, Sam’s
going to play on Sundays. There’s zero doubt in my mind Sam’s an NFL player.”
A ligament injury in his mid-right foot limited Leavitt to only seven starts last year as he
led ASU to a 5-2 record. On pace to surpass his 2024 campaign, he completed 145 of
239 passes for 1,628 yards, 10 TDs with three interceptions and added 306 yards and five
TDs on the ground before the injury.
Now, he arrives in Baton Rouge. Again, poised to improve, but now battling a new
challenge.
Leavitt’s Lisfranc (named after Jacques Lisfranc de St. Martin, a French surgeon in the
1800s) procedure on Oct. 31 realigned displaced and/or torn metatarsal bones in the center
of his right foot with stabilizing screws. The injury and surgery are not uncommon in
college athletics. Almost all athletes who experience the season-ending surgery return
for the next year but typically experience a minor decrease in production.
Former LSU quarterback Matt Mauck had the same injury in 2002 and missed much of that season.
But he returned in 2003 to help lead LSU to the national title with minimal impact from the injury.
Leavitt signed with Kiffin and the Tigers in January, but he missed the bulk of spring
practice before and after having the screws removed from his surgery removed on April
6.
The expected starter was fully cleared for fall practice over the summer, and Kiffin was
not that concerned that his quarterback missed the majority of spring drills.
“Years ago, you’d have been really concerned that the quarterback’s going to miss your
spring,” Kiffin said. “He’s done a great job mentally in the meetings and walk-throughs
and was able to throw some individual before this procedure.”
And Kiffin and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. did get quarterback Trinidad Chambliss
ready for a superstar 2025 season at Ole Miss in just a summer as Chambliss had not transferred in
time from Division II Ferris State to make spring practices. All he did was throw for
3,937 yards and 22 TDs after an abbreviated offseason and enters this season as a
Heisman Trophy contender.
And Kiffin and Weis Jr. are also not that worried because they are used to developing
transfer QBs into immediate stars. They helped USC transfer Jaxson Dart become a
first-round NFL Draft pick after the 2024 season. He passed for 2,974 yards and 10
touchdowns and ran for 614 yards and a score in his first year at Ole Miss in 2022.
The Kiffin-Weis offense has produced a 3,000-yard passer in each of the last three
seasons, and Leavitt has the talent and tenacity to make his mark in year one at LSU.
The redshirt junior is an exceptional improviser in and out of the pocken, a threat in
open space and a creative passer who can make any throw on the field. Most
importantly, he adapts quickly.
Westview, Pleasant Grove, West Linn, Michigan State, Arizona State, LSU — wherever
he goes, he succeed. And he gets better at each stop along the way.
And he does not wait around to do it.
“He’s really a quick study,” Jon Eagle, who was Leavitt’s coach at West Linn High, told
Tiger Rag. “What he’s really good at, too, is deciphering a lot of information in half a
second, which is important for a quarterback looking at the field.”
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