Skip Holtz Will Be USF's Next Head Coach

It's For Real: Skip Holtz To Coach South Florida

Via an official university statement (with poorly justified margins) and everything!

A new era began at the University of South Florida with the hiring of Skip Holtz as the head coach of the football program on Jan. 14, 2010.

Holtz, who is just the second head coach in the 13 year history, comes to USF after five seasons at East Carolina and is a riding a streak of back-to-back Conference USA Championships. Holtz is one of just four coaches nationally to lead his teams to league titles each of the last two seasons.

Let the Mike-Leach-To-ECU campaign begin! As for Holtz, going from the purple-festooned Pirate enclave to the land of Gasparilla should make him feel right at home. (And make no mistake, the number of Big East contests covered by ESPN is about to skyrocket -- nothing finer than a little Holtz-on-Holtz action, amirite?)

Skip Holtz To Take USF Job

Love happens, y'all: those passionate eyes Skip Holtz and USF were making at each other are now an engagement, and the East Carolina coach will leave the Pirates after four seasons and two Conference USA titles at the school to coach the South Florida Bulls. Tissues all around, please.

Details to come on the contract. Holtz is a solid hire, and one that makes immense sense from a number of angles. Financially, he won't break the bank of a school tied up with a potential settlement from the ongoing Leavitt saga.Coaching-wise he's not the firebreather Leavitt is, and will provide a welcome change of pace in Tampa. Programatically, Holtz understands programs in transition and how to build them up, something he's done at previous stints at UConn and ECU in taking programs on an upward trajectory and making sure they stayed that way.  

In summary: a solid, nonsense-free hiring for a program immersed in far too much nonsense recently.