Staying patient with Jeff Lebby might not be easy for some, but it’s wise

In his second year as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator, Jeff Lebby has spent the majority of the season in the crosshairs. There’s no player or coach that has been vilified by Sooner Nation to the extent that Lebby has, and his dissenters have only grown louder in recent days as Oklahoma chews on a two-game losing streak that has foreclosed their path to the College Football Playoff.

The Sooners are still within the national top 20, have a viable path to the Big 12 championship game and rank seventh in the nation in total offense. Even so, many fans have expressed readiness to simply begin the search for a new offensive coordinator.

Is the desire for Lebby’s dismissal an overreaction? Let’s dive into both sides of the debate.

It’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? The Sooner staff spent all offseason preaching the importance of situational football, and Lebby has directly contributed to two consecutive losing efforts with poor decisions in crunch-time scenarios. Two weekends ago, the Sooners led 33-32 over Kansas with less than three minutes to play, and had the ball in Jayhawk territory after an Ethan Downs interception. One first down would effectively have iced the game, but Lebby made no proactive attempt to move the chains, drawing up three straight run plays into a stacked Jayhawk box. Kansas got the ball back with over two minutes on the clock and needed barely half that time to string together a go-ahead touchdown drive.

Last weekend, the Sooners trailed Oklahoma State 27-24 with less than 90 seconds remaining. But they had possession of the football, which afforded them an opportunity to tie or win the game with a scoring drive. Facing fourth-and-5 near midfield, Lebby called what was essentially a one-read route concept, which called for Dillon Gabriel to roll to the short side of the field and find Drake Stoops on an out pattern. The only problem was that Stoops ran his route short of the sticks, and with no other option, Gabriel had to force him the ball anyway. Though Stoops caught the pass, a Cowboy defender corralled him over a yard shy of the marker, and the Sooners turned the ball over on downs. After two kneel-downs from Alan Bowman, Bedlam belonged to the Pokes.

To be fair, the questionable late-game decisions don’t constitute the entirety of the basis for Sooner fans’ ire. Many were alarmed — even repulsed — to see Lebby’s father-in-law, the disgraced Art Briles, at an Oklahoma home game earlier this season. Lebby was initially defensive when challenged about Briles’ presence before issuing a prepared apology at a press conference the following week. And in response to questions about the pivotal play calls against Kansas and Oklahoma State, Lebby showed little contrition. Of the penultimate drive against the Jayhawks, Lebby said that he was “trying like heck to get a first down,” but later acknowledged he felt that “to pin them there without any timeouts, making them go the length was the right thing to do.” With regard to the final call against Oklahoma State, Lebby stated that Stoops ran the route too short before acknowledging, “I can put us in a better position.”

On a broader scale, the Sooners’ RPO-heavy offensive philosophy has been subject to plenty of recent criticism, as has Lebby’s tendency to attack the perimeter at the line of scrimmage rather than trying to exploit downfield weaknesses in opposing defenses. Those criticisms are fair; another criticism that might be added to the list is that Lebby simply hasn’t stuck with what works. Gavin Sawchuk rushed for 96 yards and a TD on nine first-half carries last weekend; he touched the ball just four times in the second half. Nic Anderson, who leads the Big 12 in touchdown receptions, was targeted just once in the Kansas loss. Dillon Gabriel rushed for over 100 yards in the Sooners’ climactic upset win over Texas; Lebby didn’t draw up a single designed run for Gabriel last weekend in Stillwater. It’s almost as if Lebby fears that if he goes to the well one too many times, he’ll fall in.

With Lebby’s shortcomings noted, it’s time to flip the discourse on its head. There are a few common points of emphasis amongst fans that have advocated for Lebby’s firing, a few buzz phrases that you’ll hear from within that contingent. So let’s address them one by one.

Cumulative stats don’t matter if you don’t deliver in crunch time! Admittedly, this is fair and it’s true. But it also underscores the reality that Lebby is far from the only culpable party in the Sooners’ two-game skid. Oklahoma had 440 yards of offense in Lawrence and 492 in Stillwater. It’s not as if the Sooners were stymied offensively throughout those games. Crunch time might never have arrived in Lawrence if Marcus Stripling hadn’t muffed a kickoff, or if Reggie Pearson hadn’t picked up a ticky-tack targeting foul that led to a Kansas touchdown, or if the Sooners had been able to get off the field on a pair of late fourth-down attempts by the Jayhawks. Crunch time might never have arrived in Stillwater if Andrew Raym hadn’t botched a snap and caused a turnover, or if Gabriel hadn’t thrown a rare interception into double coverage, or if pass interference had been adjudicated consistently on both sides by the officiating crew. Lebby might be the convenient scapegoat because his errors were magnified by the circumstances, but those two football games weren’t lost on his headset.

He makes $2 million! And THIS is the result we get? Keep in mind that Lebby is an Oklahoma alumnus who made a lateral move (at least in terms of responsibility) to return to his alma mater. He had multiple offers to continue his career elsewhere last offseason, both as an OC and as a head coach. He declined all such opportunities to remain at Oklahoma. When the university cuts the check for Lebby’s $2 million salary, they’re paying not only for excellence, but for stability. In this day and age, it’s a rarity that a highly regarded coordinator stays at the same program for longer than a couple of years. And who knows? Perhaps Lebby gets an opportunity that he simply can’t turn down this coming offseason. But the point is that as an alumnus, he is less likely to bail for something as simple as a higher salary or a larger role. Stability makes life easier on a coaching staff in every imaginable way. It’s easier to recruit, it’s easier to drill down practice habits, and it’s easier to execute on game days when there is a constancy and familiarity within your operation.

It’s been almost two years of this! It’s time for a change if he hasn’t figured it out yet! That sounds quite like the Nebraska fanbase, which demanded championship contention for years throughout the 2000’s and 2010’s — and incessantly referenced the standard of dominance Tom Osborne had established in the 1990’s as the basis for those expectations. That fanbase’s insistence on microwave results led to the virtual demise of their program, which continually sunk lower and lower with each new coach and coordinator they shuffled into the deck. As of today, though Matt Rhule is finally on the verge of getting the program to the six-win threshold once again, the formerly invincible Cornhuskers haven’t even played in a bowl game since the Obama administration. The lesson here? Making change for the sake of making change is never prudent.

TCU’s historic 2022 season, which saw the Horned Frogs go 13-2 and play for a national title in Sonny Dykes’ first season at the helm, also helped establish an unrealistic expectation for most any program enduring a rebuild. TCU’s unbeaten 2022 regular season defied odds and logic; you might have simulated that campaign a hundred times over, and the Frogs would never have been that successful again. There was an element of chance to TCU’s remarkable run, but as many other fanbases — including Oklahoma’s — watched it unfold, they began to complain, “Why can’t WE have that kind of success in Year 1?” Now, here in 2023, the Frogs have come crashing back to earth. They own a 4-5 record and will have to upset either Texas or Oklahoma to become bowl eligible. The lesson here? Without a rock-solid, carefully crafted foundation for a rebuild, a program might still be able to manufacture microwave success. But what’s the very nature of a microwave? One minute it’s hot enough to cook your food, and the next minute, it’s back to room temperature.

Lebby’s offensive philosophy doesn’t work anyway! Enter Tim Robinson, comedically cocking his head and asking, “You sure about that?” With moderate offensive talent at Lebby’s disposal in 2022, Oklahoma averaged 474 yards of offense on a weekly basis and scored 32.8 points per game. This season, they’re seventh in the nation in total offense (a weekly average of 482 yards) and are scoring 39.9 points per game. They’re not struggling to move the ball. They’re not struggling to score. Are they a steamroller like Joe Burrow’s LSU Tigers of 2019? By no means. At times, they have issues sustaining drives, and they have a sporadic tendency to get out of rhythm. But there are well over a hundred FBS programs that would love to have Oklahoma’s overall offensive production, let alone Oklahoma’s record. The offense's issues are situational, not systemic. And situational issues are far, far easier to fix than systemic ones.

It’s Year 2 of a ground-up rebuild. The Sooners have a top-10 win (in which Lebby flexed his muscles via the two-minute drill, by the way), and their two losses have both come at the hands of ranked foes. The sky isn’t falling, and Oklahoma isn’t failing. Double-digit wins is still an attainable goal for this team, which came into the season with a Vegas over/under win total of 9.5. They’re playing — and winning — commensurate with preseason expectations.

Moreover, Lebby hasn’t even had the chance to fully deploy his prize recruit, former five-star quarterback Jackson Arnold. He’s got a couple of elite QB prospect coming in on Arnold’s tail; four-star 2024 commit Michael Hawkins has over 40 total touchdowns and all of one interception this fall as a high school senior. Four-star 2025 commit Kevin Sperry has Carl Albert High in the driver’s seat for an Oklahoma state championship. The Sooners have national top-100 commits set to sign in December at running back (Taylor Tatum), wideout (Zion Kearney) and tight end (Davon Mitchell). The future is undeniably bright for Oklahoma on the offensive side of the football, and if Lebby flops with the star-studded cast of characters en route to Norman, perhaps the conversation regarding his dismissal becomes more relevant.

For the moment, there’s little logical reason to call for Lebby’s head, regardless of what the emotional rhetoric may be. The criticism is justified, and he is as much to blame as any individual for the two-game losing streak. But patience is a virtue with which Oklahoma fans have become well acquainted over the last fourteen months. Those who are willing to be patient with Brent Venables and his vision for Oklahoma ought to trust that he’s capable of making decisions in the program’s best interest. He made the decision to bring in Lebby as the Sooners’ playcaller, and he has never expressed any semblance of doubt in that decision.

To that point, Venables offered his support of Lebby and the offense in his weekly presser Tuesday, saying, “They’ve done a pretty good job. I think they have a great body of work. Offensively, you are still No. 1 in the offense in scoring. That is the name of the game there. First in the conference in total yards, first in the conference in passing. They’ve obviously made a lot of good decisions. We are top 10 in the country on third downs, first in the conference on third downs. They’ve done a nice job of protecting the passer, one of the best in college football.”

Essentially, the validity of this entire conversation boils down to one query.

Do you trust Brent Venables with the future of the Oklahoma program?

If so, there’s no reason not to trust Jeff Lebby as the Sooners’ offensive coordinator.