Jeff Lebby: Expect fast, fearless, physical Ole Miss offense



Ole Miss offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby and 2020 QB signee Kade Renfro

Ole Miss first-year offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby stopped by Reb Talk with voice of the Rebels, David Kellum, on Thursday to discuss a wide range of topics, from his offensive philosophy and evaluation of the current roster, to virtual recruiting and more. Here’s what he had to say …

On the move to Oxford and settling in: I can’t say enough good things about it. Everybody’s been incredibly supportive. At the end of the day, when it all started, I didn’t know a ton about Oxford. I thought I knew a lot about Ole Miss and Ole Miss football and the Grove and the game-day atmosphere and the tradition and the SEC, but the town of Oxford is something I knew very, very little about. Got here and got to spend some time getting to know people inside the town, and now that we’re out in our neighborhood that we’re in, it’s been humbling, it’s been awesome. Incredible people. My wife and myself, we’re small-town people; we both grew up in small towns. We come from Orlando, which Orlando was an incredible experience, but being able to get back to the small-town feel of the South, it’s been really, really good. Just appreciative of everybody that’s been here.

On his football influences: My dad was a huge influence. Obviously, he was my head coach in high school; he did it for a long time. I was fortunate to have a lot of success, and he did a great job motivating every single day, motivating young kids. My background’s as a high school football coach ‘cause I grew up that way. I think high school coaches do the best job of coaching guys, and adapting, in all of football, because they gotta coach what walks through their front door every single day. They don’t get to pick. They don’t get to recruit. They’ve got to adapt, and I think that’s maybe one of my best qualities, is adapting to the people around me every single day. I get that strictly from him.

Another great influence, my older brother played high school football, and then going off to college and was in Waco (at Baylor) for nine years with coach (Art) Briles and the entire staff there. Offensively, great influence (on) what we’re doing here. Having the ability to be here with coach (Lane) Kiffin, learn from him, work with him every single day, is going to be an opportunity I couldn’t be more excited about. His pedigree is second to none, and I’m just excited to go to work and get going.

On leaving Central Florida, where he served as offensive coordinator in 2019: It was a great ride. It was an incredible two years. Coach (Josh) Heup(el) is a close friend of mine, and I can’t tell you how much I learned from him over a two-year span and what he was able to do for me, growing me from being a position coach into being a coordinator and helping me every single day understanding the entire picture from front to back, back to front, planning it, game-planning it and everything that goes into it 365 days a year. He really put me in a position to do what I’m doing today from an organizational standpoint and teaching me so much about being a coordinator and taking care of the offensive side of the ball.

On who will handle play-calling duties at Ole Miss: I appreciate coach. He came out and said it publicly earlier (that) I’ll be the play-caller. But at the end of the day, coach has been so successful offensively. If he wants to change something, he’s going to change it. All the success he’s had, if he wants something done, it’s going to happen. That’s how we’ll operate, but I’ve got great confidence in him, and I think he’s got great confidence in me to be able to run with it and go do it. I think it’ll be a great situation.


(Photo: John Bowen, 247Sports)

On his offensive philosophy: The things that we live by, you’re going to hear us talk about being fast, fearless and physical on offense. Everything we’re going to do is going to be fast-paced. We’re going to run around fast on the field, we’re going to coach fast and play fast. We’re going to be fearless. We’re going to call plays in a fearless manner. We want our guys to go out and be fearless when they step on the football field and cut loose and go play. And we’re going to be a physical football team that’s going to be incredibly physical. I truly believe there has not been a championship football team that hasn’t found a way to be physical in every area of their football team. We’re going to do that and play that way every single Saturday. That’s everything you do — from being a ball-carrier, to blocking on the perimeter, to blocking in the core. Everything you do, you’ve got to find a way to be physical. It’s a physical game. If we’re going to hoist the trophy, we’re going to find ways to be physical at every position on the offensive side of the ball.

On his evaluation of the current roster: We felt like we had a really good feel for each one of our guys (before the pandemic suspended regular operations). Come in, we watch film of every single snap of Nick Broeker. We watch every single snap of John Rhys Plumlee. We watch every snap of Elijah (Moore). All these guys that came back and played significant time last year, you watch every snap of those guys. So you feel like you know what you have, but you don’t truly know until you get your hands on them and you get on the grass with them. Without that part of it, we’re still missing that. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t. When we get to that point, it’s going to feel really, really good. It’s going to allow for big-time growth at every single position, which we’re going to need and we’re going to want. We’re looking forward to that. I think the tough thing is, for first-year staffs, you don’t know until you actually get on the grass with them how they’re going to respond to how we coach every single day. Once that happens, I think there will be big-time growth. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

More on the roster: We’ve got a bunch of guys back. I love the fact that I’m sitting in there watching tape … really, it’s mid-December … and I’m watching and evaluating all these guys that are coming back and I can pause the tape and, hell, there’s nine guys that are back on offense. That’s a great thing for us, because we’ve got guys that have played. You’ve got to live experience. These guys that have played ball on Saturdays in this league against the people we’re going to play, they’ll be more prepared come next fall. So, we’ve got a lot of guys back. Feel really, really good about them. We’ve got to do a great job of developing at a couple of positions to create some depth. We’ve got to do a great job at the tight end position. Losing both of those guys (Octavious Cooley and Jason Pellerin) hurts us, but we feel good about a couple of guys that we’ve got in the room, with the grad transfer (Kenny Yeboah) coming in and a couple of guys to supplement that spot. We’ll find ways to make that work, and then, ultimately, at the end of the day, the quarterback position, got both those guys back with a strong room. Feel good about where that room’s at. Both of those guys have worked tirelessly to put themselves in a good spot and be ready once we get back going.

On Jerrion Ealy and John Rhys Plumlee balancing football and baseball: You don’t get too concerned about guys like John Rhys and Ealy going through that because they are going to find time to get better. Those are guys that want to perfect their craft and work in a great way to make sure that they’re going to be prepared once they get back over here to football. They did that. The baseball part of it, man, I know we all hate, the entire Ole Miss community, hates what happened (with the season being suspended). A bunch of people had to go through it, but our guys were competing their butts off and competing at a high level. Would have been awesome to see what they could have got done.

On the NCAA suspending in-person recruiting, forcing coaches to go strictly virtual: It’s going really, really well. I think it’s created a good little buzz for us. I think the biggest part of it, people talk about relationships in recruiting, and at the end of the day, that’s going to win. We’ve got to do our job and put a great product on the field every Saturday, which we’re going to do. But relationships in recruiting, at the end of the day, that’s going to be a huge, huge part of it. So being able to get on the phone with these high school coaches and spending time with them and finding ways to add names to our list, or if we’re missing on somebody, ‘Hey, coach, who is it?,’ and they give us the name and we get them re-watched and re-evaluated. Or sometimes there’s a move-in, to where there’s a kid out there that we haven’t watched or haven’t evaluated that we would be getting while we’re on the road in spring recruiting. All we can do is take spring recruiting and do it from our house. You’re not able to eyeball the kids, but you’re still able to gather every bit of information you would sitting in front of the coach in his office. Trying to do those things every day and bridge that gap from a relationship standpoint. For instance, I’m recruiting Tennessee; I don’t know a lot of those coaches in that state. This has been great for me to get on the phone with those guys and introduce myself and talk ball and talk recruiting and everything else that’s going on.

On the importance of in-state recruiting: It is a huge focal point for us. We’ve got to do a great job in-state. We talked about relationships, we talk about putting a great product on the field, but kids want to stay home. If you give them a reason to stay home because you put a good product on the field, because you have done a good job building relationships, they will stay home. It’s critical for us to get the top players in the state to come to Ole Miss. We’re the University of for a reason. People need to see that and need to be here to help us grow this thing in the way we’re wanting to grow it.

SOURCE: Garrett, Ben. "Jeff Lebby: Expect fast, fearless, physical Ole Miss offense." OMSpirit - 247Sports.com, 10 April 2020, https://247sports.com/college/ole-miss/Article/Jeff-Lebby-Expect-fast-fearless-physical-Ole-Miss-offense-145896412/