What to expect of Mississippi State football's wide receivers in year one with Jeff Lebby?

How have Jeff Lebby’s receivers performed elsewhere?

So, what did Jeff Lebby do with scheming his offense for his wide receivers at other schools?

Things were fun at UCF in 2019!

But, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, Lebby had a trio of wide receivers who were truly remarkable for him with the Knights in 2019. They were just very effective, dynamic threats that had a hard time being stopped by anyone.

And that let Lebby have plenty of fun with the entirety of his passing attack.

But, at most of Lebby’s stops, he’s essentially had one dominant wide receiver who breaks over 1000 receiving yards and then a strong group of supporting wide receivers who have a relatively balanced load of passes hurled their direction. 

You can see that well with the Southeastern Fire back in 2017 (most folks aren’t going to be familiar with the small, Florida Christian institution or their football team, but it’s where Lebby landed after leaving Waco and Baylor). It’s also something that’s evident with the Ole Miss Rebels in 2020 and 2021 and then also the Oklahoma Sooners in 2022.

It wasn’t so present in 2023 with the Sooners, though Drake Stoops did a really solid job of coming close to that in racking up over 900 yards. 

Lebby’s offense was a bit more balanced in the manner that it distributed the ball to receivers in 2023 and you could argue that this is a more effective manner of attacking defenses (Mike Leach really enjoyed spreading the ball around to a bunch of different receivers). 

But it’s not quite the norm for Lebby’s offense to really do that. At Southeastern, LaQuvionte Gonzalez caught 60 passes for over 1018 yards and a total of 10 touchdowns. Over in Orlando with the UCF Knights in 2019 (Lebby wasn’t the OC during the 2018 UCF season), Gabriel Davis made 72 catches, recording 1241 yards and 12 touchdowns in the process.

In Oxford in 2020, Elijah Moore was the primary receiving threat for the Ole Miss Rebels, catching 86 passes and racking up 1193 receiving yards and eight touchdowns of his own. Then in 2021, Donatrio Drummond snagged 76 receptions for 1028 receiving yards and had eight touchdowns.

For the most part, you’re going to see one primary receiver stand out and then there’s a sizable gap before the next receiver steps up. UCF 2019 and OU 2023 are seasons in which that trend doesn’t necessarily apply.

Some of that has to do with personnel in the wide receiver corps and some of that has to do with how capable a team is with running the ball (Lebby said at the Houston Road Dawgs alumni association event that he really wants to run the ball well and chuck the ball down the field well, for what that’s worth). It also should be noted that there’s a really good chance Lebby wasn’t able to truly have full freedom in the way his offense operated anywhere prior to Starkville. So… That might have something to do with it as well.