Pressure builds in Jeff Lebby’s young tenure at Mississippi State

Maybe it was subterfuge, maybe not.

There were plenty of reasons for Jeff Lebby to have a somber expression when he answered questions from the media following Mississippi State’s 45-28 loss to struggling Florida Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium.

So Lebby didn’t have to change his demeanor when he delivered an update on quarterback Blake Shapen.

“We’ll know a lot more tonight and into tomorrow,” the Mississippi State coach said.

Credit Mississippi State for getting out in front and delivering the bad news Saturday night, shortly before 9 p.m., that Shapen, the transfer from Baylor, will have shoulder surgery and miss the rest of the year.

Maybe Lebby didn’t have the official word in the afternoon when the skid marks of another lopsided home loss were still fresh and painful.

Maybe he had an idea, and he just needed a brief respite from the reality of his first season as a head coach.

In five of their next eight games, the Bulldogs will face teams currently ranked in the AP top 10. It’s a brutal gauntlet for any team, much less one struggling against the likes of Toledo.

Most rookie head coaches don’t win all their games, but few debut seasons set up the way Lebby’s appears to be moving right now.

Given what the Bulldogs have so far demonstrated against FBS competition – slow-starting offense and poor-tackling on defense among the most glaring issues – whether they will win more than one additional game is seriously in question.

Shapen, healthy or not, wasn’t going to be the difference in winning and losing at No. 1 Texas next week, or at Georgia, the team Texas unseated as No. 1, after a bye. Then there’s highly ranked Tennessee, Missouri and in-state rivals Ole Miss on the schedule.

But if Lebby and his staff can get his players to clean up some things, perhaps to loosen up, to do something to make plays and gain confidence in the first quarter, to not play catch-up in the face of a giant deficit, maybe then quarterback play could make a difference against currently unranked Texas A&M or Arkansas.

As things sit today, the only game left on the Bulldogs schedule they are likely to be favored in is UMass and even they should not be taken for granted. The Minute Men only lost to Toledo 38-28.

Needs Time to Rebuild

When a new coach steps in after a forced resignation, a rebuilding program follows. Expectations are set accordingly, but even the most dismal predictions for the Bulldogs called for more than one or two wins.

“We’ve got a choice to make, and the choice is up to every one of us. When we wake up tomorrow morning the sun’s going to come up, we’re going to have breath in our bodies, and we’re going to be thankful for the opportunities and understand, are we going to do everything we can to fix it, everybody in that room? There is a decision to be made,” Lebby said Saturday afternoon.

He went on to predict, “There will be great belief, and great energy and great confidence in how the guys are getting coached every single day, as we’re four games into this thing. That is a guarantee.”

Lebby has to make bold assertions because right now he has to create belief and confidence in his players with no tangible results behind him.

And he doesn’t have a starting quarterback, an older guy who had been through key moments in another power conference program and who was playing pretty well in new environs.

That’s a lot missing from any coach’s bag of tricks, especially one new to the big chair.

There were multiple factors in play when the 2023 season got away from Zach Arnett, and State AD Zac Selmon fired Mike Leach’s successor before he completed a full season.

Who’s Up at Quarterback?

When Arnett faced extended time without his starting quarterback, record-setting Will Rogers, his backup plan, journeyman Mike Wright, could not move the offense. Wright is now at Northwestern.

It appears Lebby is about to hand the keys to true freshman Michael Van Buren Jr., a three- or four-star signee depending on which recruiting website you follow.

Van Buren, coming in cold, led one touchdown drive and nearly led another. As Vince Lombardi might say, he just ran out of time.

Van Buren’s drives covered 12 plays and 13 plays. Be mindful they came against a defense that is having its own issues right now.

But Van Buren was at least aggressive. He completed seven of 13 attempts and didn’t throw it to the other team in almost a quarter of play.

If Van Buren is indeed the plan moving ahead you’ll see more running from him than you did from Shapen because it’s more of his skill set but also out of necessity.

Jeff Lebby has been thrown an unfortunate curve in his first season. 

He faced a challenge with the fixes he was already working on, and now he’ll press a young quarterback into action.

It’s time to modify those expectations again.

Practice, You’re Talking Practice

Lebby will be working with a quarterback who hasn’t gotten the volume or reps or attention that starters get in practice. He’ll have to dole out the playbook in smaller portions. He’ll have to find what Van Buren does well and work up plays and packages that will help the young quarterback grow.

For the rest of the season success for Mississippi State should be judged not necessarily in wins and losses but in confidence and rhythm. If the offense is competitive and looks different, if there are fixes on defense too, all of this maintain confidence in Selmon’s hire.

It’s more than a new coach should have on his plate right now, but this is Jeff Lebby’s wheelhouse.

Offense is his thing. He’s a quarterback whisperer, a go team guru.

Hopefully Jeff Lebby can call on experience from his very successful past to keep his first season at Mississippi State from going off the rails.