Here’s everything you want and need to know about new LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt:
He can run and move in the pocket.
He can throw, deep and accurately, though he admitted he’s had to adapt to gripping footballs in the swimming-pool-like Louisian humidity.
He speaks.
The last part you didn’t know about unless you attended LSU’s recent women’s football clinic, or saw video clips thereof. But talk he finally did to the media after the Tigers’ Monday practice session for a highly anticipated 10 minutes, the first time LSU’s quarterback has uttered a word to reporters since transferring from Arizona State.
Not surprisingly, for his first time out, Leavitt said all the right things.
“It’s just been a blessing to come here,” the West Linn, Oregon, native said.
“It’s a historic place. There have been so many great players to come out of here. Then to see the players you go up against every day in practice — Whit Weeks, TJ Dottery and Ty Benefield — it’s a special situation to be in. I don’t really see how anyone could pass it up.”
The first time LSU fans set their eyes on Leavitt in person was at a Jan. 6 men’s basketball game against South Carolina. That night, an intimate gathering of a few thousand folks (was there anything but an intimate gathering for men’s basketball the past couple of seasons?) looked on a scene that seemed like it was going to be a cameo appearance in Baton Rouge for Leavitt as he sat courtside next to LSU coach Lane Kiffin. Leavitt didn’t commit but instead was soon gone to Tennessee and Miami, his two recruiting visits after leaving Baton Rouge.
What happened next was pure recruiting theater. Kiffin flew in pursuit of Leavitt to Knoxville — where the LSU coach once coached one season and where they don’t like him much more than they do at Ole Miss — to continue his pitch to Leavitt while on his Tennessee visit.
Kiffin’s dogged determination worked, giving LSU the top-rated quarterback in the 2025-26 transfer portal cycle.
“The portal process was pretty crazy,” Leavitt said. “I didn’t expect it to go in that direction. When I came out here and took my visit, I fell in love with the place.”
Initially not so much in love that he didn’t leave Baton Rouge for those other visits, but sometimes love has to grow on you. His confirmed NIL deal, according to the recruiting site , of $4.5 million obviously helped. If that sounds like a lot of money — and it is — bear in mind that Miami reportedly ended up giving Darian Mensah $6.5 million after being spurned by Leavitt. That does tell you Leavitt’s love for LSU wasn’t merely transactional.
The Kiffin/Charlie Weis Jr. factor (LSU’s offensive coordinator who followed Kiffin from Ole Miss) also plays an enormous part. Leavitt had to take a hard look at what they did with Trinidad Chambliss last season with the Rebels, the prolific nature of Kiffin’s offenses throughout his tenure in Oxford, and figured this is where he would best grow into a polished NFL prospect.
“It’s easy to sell on how well people play in a short period of time with us,” Kiffin said Monday. “They don’t have to come and wait a year and learn.
“Him projected to miss spring and not be fully cleared in spring, we sold him on, ‘Hey, at the last place, without a spring, look at what the quarterback was able to do.’ We brought in pieces around him. I think it was kind of an easy sell. Then you’re playing quarterback at LSU, which has been a pretty good move the last 10 years.”
Those making that move to LSU, of course, include another Arizona State quarterback, Jayden Daniels, who in 2023 passed and ran his way to the Heisman Trophy.
Sophomore cornerback DJ Pickett may have gotten Jayden Daniels’ former No. 5 to wear this season — a promise from his recruitment under Brian Kelly that, kudos to Kiffin, he decided to honor — but Leavitt gets transfer quarterback-turned-superstar expectations heaped on his shoulder pads. Before Daniels, it was Joe Burrow winning the Heisman Trophy and the national championship in 2019. Despite his Lisfranc foot injury that required season-ending surgery in 2025 — Leavitt proclaimed himself 100% healthy Monday — he goes into this season with shorter Heisman odds than Burrow had.
Joe was 200/1 in August that year. Leavitt is 20/1. Not one of the top three or four favorites, but a contender based on the Kiffin/Weis magic and his dual-threat ability, a potent pairing of scheme and skill.
“Sam’s an unbelievable leader,” said safety Ty Benefield, himself a highly touted transfer from Boise State. “I love the confidence and swagger he has. Also, his big-play ability to make things happen. It’s definitely good to have that in a quarterback. We talk after practice about things he sees from me and I tell him things I see with him.
“He’s going to do great.”
At LSU, if you’re a transfer quarterback, nothing less than great is expected.