MKRob Sports

The University of South Florida has reportedly fired head football coach Jim Leavitt in the wake of allegations that he struck a player during a game this season.

Fanhouse.com, which originally broke the news about the alleged incident, reported Friday morning that Leavitt was informed of his dismissal after a meeting with school president Judy Genshaft.

Leavitt was the only coach in the program’s 13-year history, but the school conducted an investigation into claims that the coach grabbed walk-on sophomore Joel Miller by the throat and hit him twice in the face at halftime of a November 21 game against Louisville. Leavitt has denied the accusations.

Fanhouse.com, which cited Miller’s father and the player’s high school coach in its original story last month, said the school is expected to release the findings of the investigation on Friday.

There have been contradictory versions of the incident, as sophomore safety Jerrell Young told the St. Petersburg Times this week that Leavitt grabbed Miller by the shoulder pads but never struck the player.

The Bulls were 8-5 this season, finishing the campaign with a 27-3 win over Northern Illinois in the International Bowl. Only twice in Leavitt’s tenure did South Florida finish below .500 and his record at the school was 95-57.

Leavitt, who was under contract through the 2014 season, was given the task of starting the program from scratch when he was hired in December 1995. The team first took the field in 1997 and moved up to Division I-A status in 2001.

The Bulls played in Conference USA from 2003-04, then joined the revamped Big East in 2005 and earned bowl bids in each of the last five seasons. The program’s meteoric rise included a ranking of No. 2 in the AP poll during the 2007 season.