Lane Kiffin provides injury update for new LSU football QB Sam Leavitt

BATON ROUGE – Quarterback was at the top of the transfer portal wish list for Lane Kiffin to fill out his first roster in Baton Rouge.

When Kiffin and his offensive staff arrived at LSU football, there was one quarterback on the roster. And a few days after that, it was an empty position room as Michael Van Buren decided to transfer out. Arizona State junior transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt was the top rated player in the portal and LSU set its sights on him, ultimately landing him to be Kiffin’s first quarterback at LSU.

Leavitt, who heled lead the Sun Devils to their first College Football Playoff berth a couple of seasons ago, suffered a Lisfranc foot injury this past season and missed some time before needing season-ending surgery.

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In his first meeting Wednesday with reporters since Kiffin was hired back in December, the coach updated what the timeline will be for Leavitt as the Tigers will be hitting the field for spring practice within the next few weeks.

“Sam will be able to throw some and participate in 7-on-7 stuff in the spring,” Kiffin said. “Probably not the team stuff and so I think it was regardless, we would have done what we did but it’s also imperative to get quarterbacks because that’s going to be a lot of how your spring ball goes which is your first time of you team feeling an offense.”

Kiffin says that regardless if Leavitt was 100% healthy coming to LSU out of the transfer portal or not, he and his staff would’ve had the same plan that they enacted at the quarterback position. Along with Leavitt, LSU also brought in USC freshman Husan Longstreet and Elon freshman Landen Clark.

Those two guys will orchestrate LSU’s offense during team portions of spring drills while Leavitt rehabs. It’ll be an important time for Longstreet and Clark as they familiarize themselves with Kiffin’s system and battle it out for the primary backup spot on the depth chart.

“Our offense is very much pushed and driven by the quarterback because of the tempo piece of it. The other two guys, very talented players,” Kififn said. “I think that’s really maybe as anywhere the thing I’m most proud of from our GM (Billy Glasscock) to our coaches department of being able to do that at the quarterback position, three guys that I think are really talented, different styles of players.”

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Lane Kiffin details LSU football QB Sam Leavitt injury, timeline