STARKVILLE — Both the personnel and style of play, at least on offense, are sure to be drastically different for Mississippi State in 2024 compared to 2023. New head coach Jeff Lebby made that quite clear Monday night in his introductory news conference.
Coming off a 5-7 season and their first winter without a bowl game since 2009, the Bulldogs are in need of an offensive overhaul, and everywhere Lebby has gone, offensive excellence has followed. He said MSU has pieces in place already on the roster but will need to utilize the transfer portal, including at the game’s most important position.
“We’ll be able to go get a guy we need. We’re going to address (quarterback) through the portal,” Lebby said. “We also have got a couple guys on campus who I am incredibly excited about, to be able to put us in a position to go compete and have a healthy competition this spring. As we move forward with the quarterback position, we want guys who can do both — keep people honest with their feet and be able to throw it all over the yard.”
With four-year starter Will Rogers officially entering the transfer portal Monday, the Bulldogs still have former Vanderbilt transfer Mike Wright, who was recruited by Lebby while the coach was at Central Florida, as well as freshman Chris Parson. Lebby coordinated an offense at Oklahoma that averaged 43.2 points and 502.6 yards per game this year, both in the top five among all 133 Football Bowl Subdivision schools.
Although he is now a first-time head coach, Lebby — who will have a base salary of $4.51 million per year over four years with numerous performance-based incentives — said he will continue to call plays at MSU while delegating other responsibilities to an offensive coordinator.
“That’s important for me as we get started in this thing, having one voice as we move forward,” Lebby said. “As we’re putting together the staff, (I have) the ability to hire an offensive coordinator to be able to take some of the day-to-day and have total control of some of the organizational things, whether it be practice or game planning.”
A fresh start at the NAIA level
From 2008 until 2016, Lebby was an assistant coach at Baylor under his father-in-law, Art Briles, who was dismissed after an investigation revealed concerns about how the Bears’ program handled sexual assault. Lebby was named by a female student 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.
Lebby left Baylor a year after Briles’ firing, getting his first offensive coordinator job at Southeastern, an NAIA school in Florida. In his lone year there, Southeastern finished with the NAIA’s top scoring offense and third-ranked total offense, which led to him spending two years each at UCF, Ole Miss and Oklahoma.
“(Southeastern) gave me the opportunity to see (football) at the purest level,” Lebby said. “Those were young men who were playing for one reason and one reason only; it was because they loved it. It was an incredible reminder for me that this is about the players. It’s about the locker room, it’s about those guys having an incredible college experience. I loved the fact that those young men were incredibly prideful and thankful for their opportunity.”
With the transfer portal allowing teams to retool their rosters in a single offseason rather than waiting for multiple recruiting classes to develop, expectations will be high for an immediate turnaround in Starkville, even with the Bulldogs scheduled to play at Georgia, Tennessee and Texas in 2024.
“We’re truly going to be in a race against ourselves to see how good we can get before the first time we walk out into that stadium on a Saturday afternoon,” Lebby said. “What that looks like will determine how much success we have through the season.”
From friend to foe
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin employed Lebby as his offensive coordinator for his first two years with the Rebels, and together they orchestrated the Southeastern Conference’s top total offense in both 2020 and 2021.
Kiffin, who is also a notorious Twitter troll, reposted a photoshopped image depicting himself carrying Lebby on his shoulders, akin to a father giving his son a piggyback ride. Lebby said he has seen the image through text messages and is excited to be part of the Egg Bowl rivalry again, this time on the opposite side. His Ole Miss teams defeated MSU in both of his seasons in Oxford.
“Believe it or not, I’m not incredibly surprised, and I’ve got a feeling it’s not going to be the last,” Lebby said. “This is going to be fun. That one is going to be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to get to work with our guys and create a vision for them.”
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