Jeff Lebby originally planned to come to Oklahoma to play for offensive coordinator Mark Mangino. That never happened. Of course, Mangino took the head coaching job at Kansas ahead of the 2002 season.
Rated by Rivals as a four-star signee and the No. 12 offensive tackle in the 2002 class, Lebby also never played at Oklahoma. Instead, a back injury led Lebby to become a student assistant under then-head coach Bob Stoops.
After graduating from OU in 2007, Lebby spent one season at Victoria Memorial High School as the offensive line and tight ends coach before stints at Baylor, Southeastern, UCF and Ole Miss.
Now, he’s excited to return as offensive coordinator to the program where his journey began.
“Real quick thing I wanted to say was just obviously how happy I am to be back. Fifteen years have gone by since I spent my last fall in Norman. So humbling for me to be back, be back in this position being the offensive coordinator, said Lebby on national signing day.
He continued, “Sitting in a great chair that has got a ton of history and a ton of tradition and look forward to fighting for every inch every single day to continue to build this thing the right way. Fired up about getting the opportunity obviously to work for coach Venables. His passion, his vision, his consistency is something that you can feel every single day. We’ve got a great thing going. It’s going to be a lot of fun,”
It didn’t take long for Lebby to say yes when Venables inquired about Lebby taking over as OU’s next offensive coordinator.
“I think I always wanted to be back. You know, having the opportunity to be back, I’ve told a lot of people, ‘I’ve got asked to come to Oklahoma twice. I said yes as fast as I could.’ That’s the reality of it. When coach Venables called me and said, ‘Hey, I think there’s an opportunity that this could happen. Want you to be my guy.’ He said, ‘You got any questions?’ I said, ‘Where’s the pen? I want to sign as fast as I can.’ Was always hopeful to be back in this position that I’m in right now. It’s like I said earlier. I’m humbled to be sitting here and getting to work with these guys every single day and getting ready to roll,” Lebby said.
During the 2008-11 seasons, Lebby served as Baylor’s assistant director of football operations in charge of offensive quality control and was the program’s liaison to the NFL. Then, during the 2012-16 seasons, Lebby coached Baylor’s running backs. He was also Baylor’s passing game coordinator and offensive recruiting coordinator for the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
While Baylor’s running backs coach, the Bears had five 1,000-yard rushers.
Lebby’s offensive prowess continued in his next stops. In his lone season at NAIA Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla. in 2017, the Fire led the nation in scoring offense at 55.1 points per game. They ranked third in total offense per game with 557.4 yards per game.
With quarterback McKenzie Milton, Lebby helped guide UCF to the Fiesta Bowl as the Knights’ quarterbacks coach in 2018. In the 2019 season with Dillon Gabriel as his starting quarterback, Lebby and UCF set a school record and ranked second nationally in total offense with 540.5 yards per game and ranked fifth in the country in scoring offense with 43.4 points per game.
His offenses at Ole Miss were equally explosive. Both were ranked in the top six nationally in total offense and in the top 25 in scoring offense. His 2020 unit broke the SEC record for total offense in conference play with 562.4 yards per game. In 2021, Ole Miss finished No. 6 in total offense, averaging 492.5 yards per game.
Now, he’s reunited with Gabriel in Norman and tasked with continuing those results at a place in Oklahoma that’s accustomed to delivering similar offensive numbers.
“I think that the great thing about him walking in the door right now…there’s a couple of things, but, one is the production. The guy’s averaging over 300 yards a game, three touchdowns a game in 26 starts, so you can’t argue that piece of it, but I think probably the thing that I’m most excited about is this guy knows how to operate. He knows how to walk in the building every single day have great ownership in how he’s going to operate, how he’s going to take command of the offense and what it means to be a quarterback. To me, that is huge and that is critical as we set the tone and the standard of how we’re going to do things,” Lebby said of his starting quarterback Gabriel.
One thing that has been apparent with Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables, Lebby and the rest of OU’s staff since arriving in Norman is the impression they’ve left on recruits and their families. It seems like visitors can’t stop raving about what’s happening at Oklahoma.
“Yeah, I think the thing that I’ve continued to say is genuine juice. There’s a lot of fake, fluffy juice out there and energy with guys, but I think when you walk in the building, we really do have some genuine juice. We care about young people, we care about the people that we work with every single day and we care about Oklahoma football and the University of Oklahoma. I think it’s very, very unique because we’re all tied so tightly together that guys when they walk in the building, they feel that, they see that and it’s nonstop throughout the weekend and it’s been refreshing, it’s been great and we’re going to continue to build off it,” Lebby said.
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