Sam Leavitt enters 2026 carrying the kind of burden that comes with being the former No. 1 quarterback in the transfer portal: everyone expects answers, and nobody wants excuses.
Bleacher Report’s David Kenyon recently put together a list of quarterbacks with the most to prove heading into the season, and Leavitt landed near the top. That makes sense after an injury-shortened 2025 wiped away much of the momentum from his breakout 2024 at Arizona State, when he helped push the Sun Devils to a Big 12 title and the College Football Playoff.
Leavitt’s path to this point has been loaded with production and attention. At West Linn High School in Oregon, he was the Gatorade Oregon Football Player of the Year after throwing for 3,184 yards and 36 touchdowns as a senior while leading his team to a Class 6A state championship. He then spent a redshirt year at Michigan State before transferring to Arizona State in 2024, where he immediately changed the trajectory of the program.
That first season in Tempe was a big one. Leavitt passed for 2,885 yards and 24 touchdowns with six interceptions, added 433 rushing yards and five more scores, and set the Arizona State freshman record for total offense with 3,328 yards. He also earned Big 12 Freshman of the Year honors and, as the source put it, had Longhorns fans shook during the Sun Devils' double-overtime playoff loss to Texas.
Then came the setback. A Lisfranc injury in his right foot limited him to seven starts in 2025. He had surgery in November, had the screws removed in April, and missed most of spring practice at LSU.
Even with that medical cloud hanging over him, LSU still made Leavitt a major portal target. Kiffin flew to Knoxville to meet him during his Tennessee visit and beat out Miami for his commitment. Leavitt arrived as the No. 1 player and quarterback in the portal, the centerpiece of what 247Sports ranked as the country’s top transfer class.
His high school coach, Jon Eagle, described exactly why the Tigers were so eager to get him. "He has a super powerful arm and is extremely confident. What he's really good at, too, is deciphering a lot of information in half a second, which is important for a quarterback looking at the field."
There is at least some encouraging news on the health front. Kiffin said on Tyrann Mathieu's In The Bayou podcast: "He's doing well. He's been out there and pretty much full strength now."
Still, the evaluations around Leavitt are split. Fox Sports host Joel Klatt placed him No. 10 among his top quarterbacks for 2026, while CBS Sports' Shehan Jeyarajah ranked him only fourth among portal quarterback fits and pointed to the amount of work still needed around him. I ranked Leavitt fifth in my list of the top returning quarterbacks for 2026.
LSU has not exactly been quiet in the portal either. Kiffin brought in nearly 40 transfers, including nine new wide receivers led by Winston Watkins, Jayce Brown and Eugene Wilson III, along with offensive lineman Jordan Seaton.
The expectations in Baton Rouge are impossible to ignore. Joe Burrow arrived in 2018 and won a Heisman and a national title.
Jayden Daniels arrived in 2022 and won a Heisman. Neither did it in Year 1, but Leavitt now has a chance to do something they did not: make it happen right away.
Kiffin and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. have produced a 3,000-yard passer in each of the last three seasons and turned Trinidad Chambliss from a Division II quarterback into a Heisman contender in a single summer.
The challenge now is obvious. Kiffin’s Ole Miss teams kept coming up just short before he left once they finally broke through, and he now steps into a fan base that does not hand out moral victories. Leavitt is coming off foot surgery, LSU opens with a tough test against Clemson, and the whole operation will be judged fast.
If Leavitt looks like the player he was in 2024, LSU has a real shot at its first College Football Playoff berth since 2019. If the foot remains an issue or the offense never finds its rhythm, this turns into a very expensive transition year for the Tigers.