Report: Oklahoma Sooners make offensive coordinator hire

Brent Venables, a defensive-minded head coach, was in need of a dynamic offensive coordinator for his first staff at Oklahoma — and in Ole Miss’ Jeff Lebby, he’s found just that.

According to multiple reports, including a first mention from Lee Benson of Oklahoma City’s News9, Lebby has agreed to leave Oxford in favor of Norman, where he’ll become the next offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. He will succeed Bill Bedenbaugh, who left with former head coach Lincoln Riley for USC.

While Venables has a previous tie to Oklahoma, as he served as the defensive coordinator prior to his time at Clemson, so too does Lebby: an Oklahoma alumnus, Lebby signed to play football for the Sooners before an injury ended his playing career. He quickly moved into a role as a student assistant, serving for four years on Oklahoma’s staff before moving on.

Lebby was hired as part of Lane Kiffin’s initial staff at Ole Miss in 2020, and he put together back-to-back seasons of high-flying offense with the Rebels. In 2020, Ole Miss’ offense totaled 555.9 yards of offense per game and managed to average five touchdowns per contest — despite playing an all-SEC schedule due to the pandemic. Things hardly changed in 2021; in fact, Lebby and the Ole Miss offense just took a step further in the right direction with quarterback Matt Corral, who finished as one of the nation’s top quarterbacks this season. En route to Ole Miss’ first 10-win regular season in program history, Lebby’s offense averaged over 500 yards of total offense per game, averaging 6.7 touchdowns per contest.

Prior to his arrival at Ole Miss, Lebby worked at UCF, where he was the offensive coordinator for current Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel. He also had a lengthy stint with Baylor, spanning from 2008 to 2016, serving a myriad of positions — hired as an offensive quality control coach, he then moved to running backs, before taking on a slightly bigger role in his last two seasons in Waco.

Lebby now heads to Norman despite the fact that the Rebels have a Sugar Bowl on the horizon.

Kirk Herbstreit praises Lebby, questions Ole Miss’ offense without him

ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit said if everything does come together for Oklahoma, the Rebels could be in trouble against Baylor in the Sugar Bowl. Now, according to a report, things are coming together — Lebby is officially leaving, and his absence could be a game-changer, Herbstreit argued.

“You brought up the name Jeff Lebby,” Herbstreit said. “We’ll see what happens with Brent Venabales [at Oklahoma], you mentioned he might go with him.  If that ends up happening, what happens in that game?

“Lane Kiffin is more than qualified, but not in that offense. Lane will be the first one to tell you how these guys, [Kendal Briles] and Lebby, how they call the game so fast, it’s even mind-boggling to him.”