STARKVILLE — Jeff Lebby has worked for three current Southeastern Conference head coaches, but his first stop as a Division I offensive coordinator came at Central Florida, where the Knights had just hired Josh Heupel to lead their program in December 2017.
Mississippi State’s first-year head coach had known Heupel for many years by then. Both attended Oklahoma, and they first connected in Norman in 2004 when Heupel was a graduate assistant at his alma mater and Lebby was a student assistant after an injury prematurely ended his playing career with the Sooners.
“That’s where it all started,” Lebby said Monday. “(We were) grunting it up together in a tiny little office and spending a lot of hours together breaking down opponents and finding ways to create shortcuts for the staff. For me at a really young age, after he had such an unbelievable playing career, there was great growth. Being 19, 20 years old, being able to go at it every single day with him was great.”
Heupel returned to the Oklahoma coaching staff in 2006 and remained there through the 2014 season. Lebby joined the staff at Baylor in 2008, so the two faced each other annually as Big 12 opponents. After brief stints at Utah State and Missouri, Heupel became a head coach for the first time at UCF, and brought Lebby on board less than three weeks after being hired.
Lebby spent two years on Heupel’s staff as the Knights’ quarterbacks coach, taking on offensive coordinator duties in 2019. He then moved on to Ole Miss and Oklahoma before MSU gave him his first head coaching opportunity. Heupel stayed at UCF for one more year after Lebby left before accepting the head coaching job at Tennessee.
“He’s a guy I have more respect for than maybe anybody in the profession,” Lebby said. “He’s a great friend, someone who has been a great mentor to me. Having the opportunity to work for him was an incredible experience. You look what he’s done, the amount of success he’s had, the culture he’s created at an incredible place.”
Heupel and Lebby coached then-freshman quarterback Dillon Gabriel at UCF in 2019, and he threw for 3,653 yards and 29 touchdowns with seven interceptions that year in 12 starts. Gabriel and Lebby reunited for two years at Oklahoma before the Hawaii product transferred to Oregon for his final season.
Five years later, Lebby is coaching another true freshman starting quarterback with the Bulldogs (2-7, 0-5 SEC). Michael Van Buren isn’t putting up Gabriel-like numbers, but he has shown consistent improvement since taking over the starting role.
“Accuracy, anticipation, toughness, to me those are some of the greatest things Dillon brought to the table,” Lebby said. “(Van Buren) is getting challenged in the moment right now to play better. He’s taking it, he’s running with it, but from the standpoint of being accurate, having really good anticipation and playing with great toughness, those are the three things (Gabriel) is still doing that he was doing when he was 18 years old.”
Scouting Tennessee
Heupel has rebuilt the No. 7 Volunteers (7-1, 4-1) into the national power they were under Phillip Fulmer in the 1990s. Tennessee dipped from 11 wins in 2022 to nine last year, but has a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff in its sights this season.
It starts with the SEC’s second-best total defense and scoring defense. The Volunteers allow just 12.4 points per game and are giving up just 90 yards per game on the ground. That defense led Tennessee in a signature win against Alabama and helped the Volunteers survive subpar offensive performances against Florida and Kentucky. Tennessee’s only loss was a low-scoring 19-14 defeat at Arkansas in early October.
“(They have) a dominant defensive line,” Lebby said. “They’re able to roll seven or eight guys and there’s not a drop-off. They have owned the line of scrimmage in every single game they’ve played. They’ve played incredible run defense. It’s a group that’s really deep and also really old. It’s juniors and seniors in their front and they’ve played really well.”
Redshirt freshman Nico Iamaleava, in his first year as the Volunteers’ starting quarterback, is completing more than 65 percent of his passes with just four interceptions in eight games. But the Tennessee offense flows through star running back Dylan Sampson, who is 20 yards shy of a 1,000-yard season and has 19 touchdowns already.
With Sampson leading the way, the Volunteers lead the SEC in rushing at 234.5 yards per game and are second only to Ole Miss in scoring offense.
“He has been incredible at running through trash, winning one-on-ones,” Lebby said. “Arm tackles don’t tackle him, and that’s what stands out on tape. You have to get multiple people to the football. You need multiple people to get him on the ground. That’s going to be a huge part of Saturday night.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
