Former No. 1 Transfer Portal QB Enters 2026 Season Under Intense Pressure

This redshirt junior signal-caller is the face of one of the best college football programs in the SEC and all the expectations that come with it.

This formal No. 1 transfer portal quarterback likely feels as though he is carrying the weight of an entire college football program on his shoulders ahead of the 2026 season. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Pressure in college football is not distributed evenly. Some quarterbacks are simply trying to get their program back to a bowl game.

Others are handed the keys to a championship contender and told not to crash it.

Bleacher Report's David Kenyon put together a list of quarterbacks with the most to prove heading into 2026, and LSU's Sam Leavitt landed right near the top. An injury-shortened 2025 season practically erases Leavitt's breakout 2024 campaign, where he led Arizona State to a Big 12 title and the College Football Playoff.

Few players in the sport carry a heavier combination of price tag, expectations and unanswered questions heading into college football's Week 1.

Sam Leavitt's long, winding road to Baton Rouge

Leavitt was the Gatorade Oregon Football Player of the Year at West Linn High School, where he threw for 3,184 yards and 36 touchdowns as a senior while leading his team to a Class 6A state title. He spent a redshirt year at Michigan State, then landed at Arizona State in 2024 and immediately turned a program with little national expectations into a Big 12 champion.

Leavitt threw for 2,885 yards and 24 touchdowns against six interceptions, added 433 rushing yards and five scores, and set the Arizona State program record for total offense by a freshman with 3,328 yards. He was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year and had Longhorns fans shook during the Sun Devils' double-overtime playoff loss to Texas.

Unfortunately, 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.

Despite the medical questions, LSU still made him a transfer portal priority. Kiffin flew to Knoxville to meet Leavitt during his Tennessee visit, beating out Miami for his services. Leavitt was the No. 1 player and quarterback in the portal, the centerpiece of what 247Sports ranked as the nation's top transfer class.

His high school coach, Jon Eagle, told Tiger Rag what makes him different: "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."

The health update, at least, is encouraging, judging by when 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."

Fox Sports host Joel Klatt slotted Leavitt at No. 10 in his top quarterbacks for 2026, though the injury caveat followed him there too. CBS Sports' Shehan Jeyarajah ranked him only fourth among portal quarterback fits, noting the work still to be done around him. I ranked Leavitt fifth in my list of the top returning quarterbacks for 2026.

LSU's all-in gamble on Sam Leavitt

LSU brought in nearly 40 transfers under Kiffin, including nine new wide receivers headlined by Winston Watkins, Jayce Brown and Eugene Wilson III, plus offensive lineman Jordan Seaton.

Baton Rouge also has a specific history with portal quarterbacks that raises the bar uncomfortably high. Joe Burrow arrived in 2018 and won a Heisman and a national title. Jayden Daniels arrived in 2022 and won a Heisman. Though neither did it in their first year. Leavitt has a chance to do something they could not do: deliver immediately.

Former Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt (10) celebrates his touchdown run with teammate Jordyn Tyson, who now plays for the New Orleans Saints, against the Mississippi State Bulldogs. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

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.

We have to remember that Kiffin's Ole Miss teams kept falling just short, and he left the moment they broke through. Now he inherits a fan base that does not do moral victories, with a quarterback coming off foot surgery, in a season that opens with a tough test against Clemson.

If Leavitt plays as he did in 2024, LSU would be a College Football Playoff team for the first time since 2019, and everyone involved looks brilliant. If Leavitt's foot injury lingers or the team never clicks, this becomes a very expensive transition year for the Tigers.