Oklahoma has finalized a deal with Jeff Lebby to be the Sooners‘ new offensive coordinator that will make him one of the highest-paid coordinators in college football, sources told ESPN.
Lebby has been Ole Miss‘ offensive coordinator the past two seasons under Lane Kiffin and is scheduled to be in Norman, Oklahoma, on Wednesday. His average annual salary will be just under $2 million, sources told ESPN.
Brent Venables, the former Clemson defensive coordinator, was hired Monday as Oklahoma’s head coach to replace Lincoln Riley, and a big part of Venables’ plan at OU was to land Lebby as his offensive coordinator.
Lebby calls the plays at Ole Miss, in conjunction with Kiffin, and the Rebels have ranked in the top 5 nationally in total offense each of the past two seasons.
Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral blossomed this season into one of the top players in the country. He was the only FBS quarterback with more than 3,000 passing yards (3,339) and more than 500 rushing yards (597). He finished with 20 touchdown passes to go along with 11 rushing touchdowns and threw just four interceptions. That’s after having 14 passes intercepted a year ago.
Lebby was a semifinalist for the Broyles Award, given to the sport’s top assistant coach, each of the past two seasons. He spent four years as a student assistant at Oklahoma after signing to play there but suffered an injury that ended his playing career.
Before coming to Ole Miss, Lebby worked at UCF for six seasons and served as the Knights’ offensive coordinator for the last four. He was also the offensive coordinator for two seasons (2011-12) at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida. Before that, he spent nine seasons (2008-16) at Baylor, the last two of them as passing game coordinator.
Venables, with his defensive background, is following a similar route to that of Bob Stoops in bringing in a cutting-edge offensive coordinator. Stoops’ first offensive coordinator at OU was Mike Leach.
