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Leavitt searches for long snapper

By BRUCE LOWITT

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 9, 2001

TAMPA -- His top two running backs are gone. So are his top two receivers. His defensive backfield has to be overhauled. So what is South Florida coach Jim Leavitt's biggest concern?

Long snapper.

"Whenever you lose your long snapper, who's been there for four years and never snapped a bad snap, whenever you have a situation like that you're always going to be a little bit concerned."

"He should be," said Casey Cobb, sophomore tight end and heir apparent to the job Ryan Benjamin did flawlessly for the Bulls' first four seasons. "We've never had a bad snap, never had to worry about it. Now all of a sudden (Leavitt) doesn't have a lot of confidence in anybody yet."

Not exactly.

"I feel pretty good about Casey," Leavitt said. "And we're going to bring (freshman center) Justin Daniel along.

Benjamin, now a free agent with the Bucs, is the only long snapper the team has had. He arrived at USF as a defensive tackle but became a specialist at a position usually ignored until a snap for a punt, field goal or conversion goes awry.

The 6-foot-4, 245-pound Cobb originally was a walk-on quarterback, the position he played at Gulf Breeze High. "That'll help me out a little bit," he said. "But I knew how to do it, anyway. It's just like throwing a football; you just put one more hand on it. That's about it. I picked it up quick."

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?: When Leavitt built USF into an almost immediate winner (an 8-3 season after an inaugural 5-6), some fans' and boosters' expectations rose a bit too high and became unrealistic.

"They're always unrealistic for all coaches everywhere," Leavitt said, laughing. "I wish expectations were more on the graduation rate and how you impact their lives in a way that's not measurable. That's more important. I want to win. I don't like to lose. It bothers me. But there are other things in life that are more important."

Part of the problem, so to speak, is that it's Florida, where football is king. "There's not gray area," Leavitt said. "You're here to win. That's it."

HE NEVER NOTICED: Wednesday was Leavitt's first walk on the Raymond James Stadium turf since Nov. 18, when the Bulls ran off the field with a 59-0 victory over Austin Peay in hand.

Was there a twinge of excitement? When he looked around the empty stadium did he envision packed stands for the Sept. 15 home opener against Southern Utah?

"Honestly," he said, "right now all I'm thinking about is tomorrow morning's practice."

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