Sam Leavitt Era at Arizona State Begins
In this new era of the transfer portal, conference realignment, and NIL players move around to find “the spot” that’ll make them successful
Sam Leavitt comes into Tempe hoping that this is his spot to make a name for himself and to find success.
Leavitt landed at Arizona State because Jonathan Smith became the new head coach at Michigan State. Sam Leavitt didn’t want anything to do with Coach Smith’s regime in East Lansing. Leavitt went to high school at West Linn High School, a suburb of Portland, Oregon. He had great success at West Linn High, but Coach Smith didn’t recruit him very hard. That left Leavitt with a sour taste in his mouth for the former Oregon State coach.
When you look at the stats that Sam Leavitt put up during his Senior season at West Linn it’s hard to figure out why Coach Smith didn’t recruit Leavitt very hard.
Leavitt passed for 3,065 yards, 70% completion rate, 36 touchdowns, rushed for over 700 yards with eight rushing TD’s at West Linn. The Lions won the 6A State Championship as well that year.
Coach Smith’s loss, Arizona State’s gain.
With no real recruitment from an emerging state university Leavitt decided to look elsewhere. He ended up with the Michigan State Spartans. He played in four games for Sparty.
Then came the chaos of college football realignment. When people at Michigan State expected him to stay, he bolted into the transfer portal.
He found his home at ASU. Leavitt also found a familiar face in Coach Dillingham. Sam Leavitt received his first official college offer from Dillingham when he was running the offense at Florida State.
Throughout fall camp he competed against Senior transfer Jeff Sims. You could clearly see Sam wanted to get better everyday, he was trying to impress the coaches, and trying to get the starting job. As an observer at practice and scrimmages the starting job nod was going to be a tight race. Sam had some things going in his favor the Sun Devils took into account. In practice, he wasn’t turning the ball over and he had three years of eligibility left. Coach Dillingham and his offensive coaches could grow and develop with Leavitt and that would in their mind benefit the program.
The decision was made to go with young stallion and make him into the quarterback that they want running the ASU offense.
“In 300 clips of game scenarios, he has two interceptions. So you’re talking 300 clips-that’s roughly five football games-and you have two interceptions. That’s pretty good. On top of that, he cares, his work ethic, he’s mobile enough. He’s got a lot of traits where I think he’s a really, really, really good football player.” Coach Dillingham said.
Now that the Sun Devils are three games into the 2024 season it’s clear that the Sun Devils have made the correct decision in going with resort freshman.
It’s not to say that Sam Leavitt hasn’t faced challenging circumstances in his first three games. Leavitt was criticized after the Mississippi State game due to his lack of passing production. Against the Bulldogs he was a pedestrian 10-20 for 69 yards. He did score twice rushing the ball, but he hardly lit the stat sheet up.
However, five days later Leavitt had his best game as a Sun Devil where he led a furious comeback against Texas State for a 31-28 win. The third straight win for Arizona State and as of right now, an undefeated record.
“It shows our maturity and emotional stability throughout a game,” Leavitt said. “We never got too high or too low, which is what we harped on and talked about all week. It was a testament to Coach Dillingham and how our team receives information he gives to us, so we were able to take something and apply it to a road game situation.”
Sam Leavitt is gaining confidence every week he throws the pads on at practice and for games. When you have this type of confidence happening for a young, competitive quarterback it will rub off on the players around him.
The trust between Leavitt and Coach Dillingham is also maturing as well.
“It’s really cool because he can see the work I put in, and I can see the work he puts in, and there’s a lot trust there.” Leavitt said.
With the Sun Devils first ever Big 12 football game against Texas Tech coming up next Sam Leavitt is focused on the task in front of him. For Leavitt, it’s “just another game.”
He’s not getting into particulars with his stats. He’s only focused on the desired result that the team wants and that is the fourth straight win for his Arizona State team.
Michael J. Wilson-The Daily Waiver