Stampeding Through the 2025 USF Football Roster: #53 LB Gavin Leach
This young linebacker is already turning heads.
There’s still one offensive lineman left on our countdown, but today we take a brief detour to meet our first linebacker! These are the sort of things that excite you when you have written 18 straight posts about offensive linemen.
PLAYER: Gavin Leach
POSITION: Linebacker
YEAR: Freshman
HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 6'2", 205 lbs.
HOW DID HE GET HERE? Leach is coming to USF all the way from Newburgh, Indiana, where he attended Castle High School. He committed to Northern Illinois in February, then flipped to fellow MAC school Toledo in April. But there was one more twist to come: the Bulls offered Leach in September, and he flipped from Toledo in November, about a month before early signing day. He ended up signing with USF in December over the aforementioned MAC schools, as well as some really solid offers from Cincinnati and Washington State. The recruiting services had him pegged as a low three-star prospect.
WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT IN 2025? Leach is doing everything right so far. He enrolled early, earned praise from Alex Golesh during spring practice, and had a great performance in the spring game with six tackles and a sack. Playing time at linebacker might nonetheless be hard to come by this season, with the somewhat unexpected return of starters Mac Harris and Jhalyn Shuler, plus the addition of a couple experienced senior transfers. I wouldn’t expect to see Leach on the field much this fall, but he’s very clearly a player to keep an eye on for the future.