Report: Oregon hires defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt from Colorado
By Jason Parker
The Oregon Ducks are bringing in Jim Leavitt, who has spent the last two seasons as the defensive coordinator at Colorado, for the same job in Eugene.
If you can’t beat them, hire them away — that’s the new slogan of the Oregon Ducks and their new head coach, Willie Taggart. Now that it has officially become a rebuilding project in Eugene, Taggart is staying in the conference to help fix what could only be described as a God-eawful defense during the 2016 season.
Per Fox Sports college football writer Bruce Feldman, the Ducks are bringing in Jim Leavitt, who spent the last two seasons as the defensive coordinator of the Colorado Buffaloes, the defending champions of the Pac 12 South Division:
BREAKING #CU defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt is going to #Oregon as the Ducks new DC gets a 4-year deal, source tells @FoxSports.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) December 14, 2016
The hire is a huge get for Oregon, who finished last season with the 126th ranked defense in the country (out of 128 FBS teams). The Ducks gave up an average of 518 yards and 41 points each game. At the same time in Colorado, Leavitt’s defenses averaged nearly 200 yards less a game (328 to be exact) and just 21 points each game.
Leavitt returned to the college game after spending four seasons with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers coaching linebackers. His biggest job was as the first head coach of the South Florida Bulls, where he spent 14 seasons as the head man — the same USF program that Taggart spent four seasons coaching at before taking the Oregon job recently.
Oregon and Leavitt will get a chance to see if their defense is much improved when the Ducks open the 2017 season on September 2 against Southern Utah. They will get a better test the following week when the Nebraska Cornhuskers come to town.