Mississippi State has hired Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby as its next head football coach, athletic director Zac Selmon Sunday afternoon.
Lebby, 39, has spent the last two seasons with the Sooners working under head coach Brent Venables. Oklahoma finished the regular season 10-2 and ranked second among all 133 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in scoring offense (43.2 points per game) and fourth in total offense (502.6 yards per game).
He also overlapped for a year in Norman with Selmon, who was a deputy athletic director at Oklahoma during Lebby’s first season on the Sooners’ staff. Lebby will be officially introduced Monday evening at 7:30 at a celebration event outside the Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex.
“Being the head coach at Mississippi State is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Lebby said in an athletic department statement. “My family and I are fired up to engrain ourselves in this community, build relationships with our players, and hit the recruiting trail. This is a special place with special people and a football program with a storied tradition.”
Prior to Oklahoma — where he played college football before his career was halted by an injury — Lebby was the offensive coordinator for Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss in 2020 and 2021, helping the Rebels lead the Southeastern Conference in total offense in 2021. Before that, he was the quarterbacks coach at Central Florida for two years, also serving as the Knights’ offensive coordinator in 2019 for a team that ranked second nationally in total offense.
“(Lebby) is a dynamic recruiter who will attract an elite coaching staff and the nation’s top talent,” Selmon said in the release. “There is no doubt in my mind that Jeff’s leadership, vision, and resilient work ethic will take this program to incredible heights.”
Lebby spent nine seasons on the coaching staff at Baylor between 2008 and 2016, the first eight of which were under his father-in-law, Art Briles. In 2015, while he was the Bears’ running backs coach, Lebby was involved in a scandal that ultimately led to Briles’ firing. Baylor student Dolores Lozano named Lebby as one of the coaches who failed to take action against running back Devin Chafin after she reported that Chafin physically assaulted her three times.
After Baylor terminated Briles, Lebby defended his father-in-law by wearing T-shirts that read “#CAB” for “Coach Art Briles.” This September, Briles was seen on the field at Oklahoma with Lebby after the Sooners defeated SMU. Lebby later apologized for “creating a distraction,” clarifying that the intent was simply to “celebrate with (his) family.”
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