Colorado hires former USF coach Leavitt as defensive coordinator

Published Feb. 5, 2015 4:13 p.m. ET

foxsports

BOULDER, Colo. -- Colorado has hired former USF coach Jim Leavitt as its defensive coordinator and Central Michigan defensive coordinator Joe Tumpkin as safeties coach.

Leavitt has been linebackers coach with the San Francisco 49ers for the last four seasons. Before that, Leavitt spent 13 seasons at South Florida, leading the program from its inception in I-AA to eventually landing in the Big East.

He was 95-57 with the Bulls, but was fired in 2010 after a school investigation found he struck a player in the locker room and then was not truthful when questioned about it by school officials.

At Colorado, Leavitt will replace Kent Baer, who left to become defensive coordinator at UNLV after leading one of the worst defenses in the country the last two seasons with the Buffaloes.