Jeff Lebby believes Dillon Gabriel will become a Top 10 passer in college football history

Jeff Lebby went there. The Oklahoma offensive coordinator just made a wildly bold take about redshirt senior Dillon Gabriel.

“You can put a little more on Dillon, and, again, he’s now played a ton of ball. And this is a guy that, [if he] stays healthy, I would like to think he’s going to be a top 10 passer in the history of college football. That matters,” Lebby said on Tuesday.

Woah. As crazy as it sounds, Lebby might not be wrong, statistically speaking. With four years under his belt, Gabriel boasts 11,205 passing yards. Marshall‘s Rakeem Kato currently holds the No. 10 spot in career passing yards with 14,079.

If Gabriel can pass for over 2,874 yards this season, he’ll secure his spot in history. It isn’t an impossible goal. In fact, Gabriel has recorded over 3,000 passing yards in three separate seasons (2019, 2020 and 2022). Further, Gabriel likely would have repeated the feat in 2021 if he had not suffered a season-ending injury.

Lebby is confident in his QB1’s ability and hopeful he can push himself even further.

“He’s going to have a ton of production. He’s had a bunch of production. He’s got to play better. I’ve got to call it better. We’ve said that. But that guy allows you to put a lot on the whole entire unit because he’s played a bunch of ball,” Lebby said.

Gabriel joined Oklahoma last season after spending his first three campaigns at UCF. Under Lebby’s tutelage, Gabrield was named the Big 12 Offensive Newcomer of the Year by the conference’s coaches and earned honorable mention All-Big 12 recognition.

Despite Gabriel’s success, the Sooners struggled, posting a mediocre 6-7 record. Gabriel believes this year will be different for the team.

“I think we learned from this last season, is that the difference between winning and losing is very small,” Gabriel said, per Sooner Scoop’s Georgia Stoia. “And it can come down to a couple of plays, just the ways we ended up losing. But I think the situational football piece of it, getting better on that end to be able to take steps to convert on third down or have confidence in going for it on fourth down and in two minutes.

“Getting points and then fourth quarters finishing. So, just being super locked into those details, trying to get better every day. With those, which I think we’ve done a great job of in spring ball, and then a huge emphasis during summer training.”

Fans won’t have to wait long to see if the Sooners’ hard work was worth it. On Sept. 2, Oklahoma will kick off its season against Arkansas State.