Brent Venables thanks Mississippi State football coach Jeff Lebby for time at OU

The Mississippi State football program was able to get Jeff Lebby away from Oklahoma, but Brent Venables is grateful for Lebby’s time with the Sooners.

There’s a new era of Mississippi State football in Starkville. Zac Selmon, who previously worked for the Oklahoma Sooners and has extensive connections to the OU football program, hired Jeff Lebby, who previously worked for the Oklahoma Sooners and has extensive connections to the OU football program.

Now a man who currently works for the Oklahoma Sooners and has extensive connections to the OU football program is thanking Lebby, now the head coach of the Mississippi State Bulldogs, for his time in Norman.

Brent Venables, the leader of the OU football program, took to X (the social media platform previously known as Twitter) to publicly express his gratitude for Lebby’s assistance in helping getting everything reestablished at Oklahoma.

And while the Sooners aren’t quite where they want to be, Lebby’s offense did help Venables jumpstart things a bit.

Mississippi State football: OU’s Brent Venables thanks Jeff Lebby

And so, it makes sense that Venables would thank Lebby, who went to Oklahoma and was a student assistant during his college years in Norman. And of course, there’s the obvious recent connection between Lebby and the Sooners during which he acted as their offensive coordinator and helped OU score a ton of points over the past two seasons.

Venables’ statement on X reads as follows:

“On behalf of our staff, our players, and Sooner Nation, thank you Jeff for all you’ve done here at Oklahoma! We wish you, Staley, Kora, and Kane the absolute best! Boomer!”

Things weren’t always perfect for Lebby and Oklahoma. There was the Art Briles field appearance earlier this year which seemingly drove a wedge between Lebby and many folks at OU. There are also plenty of playcalling concerns and frustrations that have popped up from OU fans over this past season.

But it still looks like the guy in charge of the program is grateful to have had Lebby on the sidelines in Norman.

Now we’ll see if Lebby’s rebuilding project works out in Starkville.