:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71947553/1245924672.0.jpg "Notre Dame football news: Byron Leftwich interested in offensive coordinator position")
Byron Leftwich's next coaching stop could very well be in the college ranks.
247 Sports' Grace Remington reported on Monday that Leftwich has reached out to Nortre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman about the Fighting Irish's offensive coordinator vacancy and has emerged as a top candidate for the opening. The program is currently searching for a new OC after Tommy Rees left to take the same position at Alabama on Friday.
Spending four seasons as the OC for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Leftwich was fired immediately following the team's quick exit from the Wild Card Round in the NFL Playoffs a few weeks back. After two seasons of architecting one of the most lethal attacks in the league, his Bucs offense nosedived in 2022 as the team struggled mightily to put points on the board. The team averaged just 18.2 points per game, a significant step back from its 29.2 average the season prior, and averaged a league-worst 76.9 rushing yards per game. Despite these struggles, the unit still did just enough to win an incredibly weak NFC South with an 8-9 record and limped into the postseason. Even before the regular season concluded, reports indicated that Leftwich would get the axe following the end of the campaign and that's exactly what happened.
Should he get the Notre Dame job, it would be his very first foray into the college coaching ranks. Despite his struggles this past season, he still architected the Bucs' Super Bowl winning offense in 2020 and his experience as a quarterbacks coach would help new starting quarterback Sam Hartman in 2023.