Jeff Lebby reflected on his two years working under Brent Venables at Oklahoma as he prepares for his first season as Mississippi State’s head coach.
DALLAS — Jeff Lebby saw firsthand what it’s like for a first-time head coach to work to rebuild a program.
He witnessed it every day for two seasons at Oklahoma while serving as offensive coordinator under Brent Venables. It was an experience that was not without its ups and downs, for the Sooners on the field and for Lebby himself. But it was a two-year chapter of his coaching career that he is immensely grateful for as he embarks on his own first-time head coaching opportunity at Mississippi State this season.
“A great experience for me is being able to see him do it from Year 1 to Year 2, and (Venables) being this great coordinator who had an incredible amount of success and being able to get into that head coaching chair and find ways to keep getting better.” 
During Lebby’s two seasons working at his alma mater under Venables, Oklahoma went 16-9 before Lebby departed for Starkville, Mississippi, at the end of the 2023 regular season. That included a 6-7 record in Year 1 before the program saw marked improvement in Year 2, piecing together a 10-2 regular-season record that included a thrilling win against Texas in the Red River Rivalry. The Sooners climbed to No. 5 in the AP poll after that win before stumbling in the second half of the year and losing back-to-back one-score games on the road against Kansas and Oklahoma State.
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As Venables navigated the challenges of rebuilding Oklahoma’s program following Lincoln Riley’s departure for USC, Lebby gleaned valuable lessons from Venables about what it means to be the leader of a program. There was the work to produce on the field, as well as what was required off the field to position the program for success.
“It was all about what’s best for the program,” Lebby said. “It’s all about what’s best for the people inside our room. (Venables is) as consistent of a leader and a man as there is; I believe that, in all of college football. (I’m) indebted to him forever for giving me that experience.”
That experience saw Lebby put together one of the top offenses in college football last season, when the Sooners made notable strides from 2022 to 2023 on that side of the ball. The Sooners were 31st in scoring offense in 2022 before improving to fourth among FBS teams last fall. They saw a similar year-over-year improvement in yards per play, going from 30th to 10th, and they went from 49th to seventh in third-down efficiency year over year. Oklahoma also ranked top-25 in red-zone touchdown conversions each of the last two years.
Though the numbers were impressive, there were some prominent lulls and periods of inconsistency during key moments in Oklahoma’s losses, including each of last season’s narrow regular-season setbacks. Off the field, there was also the unwanted distraction and controversy that stemmed from Lebby’s father-in-law, disgraced former Baylor coach Art Briles, appearing on Oklahoma’s field after a Week 2 win against SMU — a moment that caused an uproar inside and outside of the program, only compounded by Lebby’s initial handling of questions about the situation.
But his two years in Norman, as well as what he accomplished offensively as a coordinator at UCF and Ole Miss, opened the door for his new opportunity as a first-time head coach taking over a Mississippi State program that returns zero starters on offense, just two on defense and is widely projected to finish near the bottom of the 16-team SEC this season.
“It’s going to be incredibly hard doing what we do,” Lebby said. “We understand that. We get to do it with the best and against the best every single day. Nobody understands that more than I do.”
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