Lane Kiffin didn’t take long after becoming the head coach at LSU to make a big splash.

A little over a month after landing the LSU job, Kiffin generated headlines by winning a battle against Tennessee and Miami for highly-coveted Arizona State transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt.

Kiffin landed Leavitt after making a surprise trip to Knoxville to recruit the quarterback in the Knoxville airpot.

“I don’t know. I just know how I do things,” said Kiffin in February when asked about showing up in Knoxville to pursue Leavitt. “There’s a good and bad to it. I’m extremely competitive, and I don’t really do well with no — that just makes me more competitive when someone says no. So sometimes that happens in recruiting, they say no. But I think that’s my job. That’s my job to LSU.

“On kind of on a different note, when people ask about the social media and why do you do it — everything that I do is for the place where I coach at. For that school, for those players, and those fans. That makes me not very liked a lot of times by other [fan bases]. So, it’s the same in that. I’m hired here to go sign the best players, regardless of whether that means I’ve got to go get on another plane or find a plane and show up somewhere and walk through the Knoxville airport to find the guy. That’s just kind of how I work.”

LSU’s 2026 season is riding on Sam Leavitt’s arm

How well Leavitt performs this fall will determine how far LSU goes in Kiffin’s first season.

A defensive coordinator who will play LSU in 2026 told ESPN that Leavitt’s strength is extending plays and that he’ll miss some throws that high-level quarterbacks are expected to make.

“He’s a good, solid passer,” said the defensive coordinator. “He’ll miss on some throws that you expect him to make it to be that high-level guy. But where he gets you is when he extends plays.”

An SEC defensive coordinator told ESPN that Leavitt isn’t as talented as the quarterbacks that LSU normally has, while also adding that he’d rather face Leavitt than former Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia (who was released by the Baltimore Ravens at the start of NFL training camp).

“He’s not the talent level that a normal LSU quarterback would be,” said the SEC defensive coordinator to ESPN. “If they [have success], it’s going to be because they got him going in the system. He doesn’t freak you out when you watch him, but he is dangerous at times. I would rather play him than Diego Pavia.”

That comment has some Tigers fans concerned about Leavitt, but I think it’s important to remember that Kiffin is one of the most impressive quarterback gurus in college football. Most quarterbacks take a big step forward while playing for Kiffin — and it’s been that way his whole career (starting with the big jump Jonathan Crompton made at Tennessee from 2008 to 2009).

I wouldn’t be too worried about Leavitt. He was highly-sought after for a reason. LSU, Miami, and Tennessee all have excellent coaching staffs, and they were all very interested in Leavitt. That alone tells me that he has the ability to be an impact quarterback in the SEC.