Tramel's ScissorTales: Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral credits new OU football OC Jeff Lebby for success

Jeff Lebby put Matt Corral in flight school. And Corral’s quarterback career soared.

Lebby and Corral were quite the team the last two years for Ole Miss, Lebby as offensive coordinator and Corral as quarterback. Now Corral is off to the National Football League, and Lebby is off to his alma mater, OU.

And Corral is thrilled for Lebby. Speaking on the Pick Six podcast this week, Corral detailed his regard for Lebby.

“For Lebby going to OU, honestly it just made him really happy,” Corral said. “Because I know him as a person. What he wanted to do, further down the line. Being more open with just whatever he wanted to run.”

Corral said Lebby and Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin didn’t always agree on the Rebel offense. In Norman, Lebby figures to run the offense with a free hand, particularly since new Sooner head coach Brent Venables is a 30-year defensive coach.

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Lebby and Kiffin “had to agree on, ‘what do you think we should do here?' They had to mutually agree if these plays would be acceptable to call,” Corral said. “Sometimes they didn’t really agree. Eventually those plays got taken out, and it obviously didn’t go in Lebby’s favor sometimes, and I know that at OU he’s going to have full control.

“That was definitely a big thing for him. The guy’s a genius when it comes to X’s and O’s and offensive scheme.”

Lebby, from Andrews, Texas, arrived at OU in 2004 as an offensive lineman. An injury curtailed his career, and he became a student assistant coach under Bob Stoops.

After graduation, Lebby went to Baylor as a quality-control analyst, then became a coach on Art Briles’ staff in 2012. Along the way, Lebby married Briles’ daughter, and that Baylor staff was swept out after Briles was fired amid a sexual-assault scandal involving Baylor players.

Lebby eventually landed on his feet at Central Florida in 2018, working for former Sooner quarterback Josh Heupel, who was OU’s QB coach during Lebby’s Norman days.

In two years as UCF’s quarterback coach, Lebby tutored first McKenzie Milton and then Dillon Gabriel to huge seasons, with a combined 54 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions from those quarterbacks in 2018-19.

In 2020, Lebby joined Kiffin’s Mississippi staff. And after a bumpy first season, Corral became a star in 2021. Most project him as a first-round NFL draft pick.

Corral credited both Lebby and Kiffin for his development, but particularly Lebby.

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“Just from learning from those guys, I mean, it’s a lot,” Corral said. “But it’s going to pay off on the next level, because it’s very complex. They teach you all the coverages.

“It started off as, we had to go to this thing called Flight School. This was just Lebby. It was Cover 1, Cover 2, all the different coverages. Just the basic ones, but within the coverages, it gets a little more complex based on formation and the checks in those coverages.

“It made it easy, because it translated from the concepts that we ran. We saw ‘em. Like, he would have cutups in these plays and these coverages. Right after we learned those coverages, we watched the cutups with these plays. So just seeing that, meshed together, it made a lot of sense. From Year 1 to Year 2, it made all the difference in the world, because I would know where the ball was going to be going 70 percent of the time before the snap. That makes a huge difference.

“You can ask any quarterback. It’s going to make a huge difference. Makes all the difference in the world.”

Corral had 29 touchdown passes and 14 interceptions in 2020. That ratio changed in 2021 to 20/5.

Lebby credited understanding the drop-eight defense, made popular by Iowa State, which has been a thorn in the flesh to Lincoln Riley’s offense in recent years at OU.

Corral said he believes he separates himself from other NFL quarterback prospects because of his work ethic and “my ability to dissect the X’s and O’s part of the game. Lebby and Kiffin did a great job with that.”

Now Lebby is in Norman, perhaps with Gabriel as his quarterback, since the former UCF southpaw has committed to transfer to OU.

It’s a good sign for the Sooners. A quality quarterback wants to reconnect with Lebby, and a star quarterback’s salute as he’s off to the NFL.

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Agent Leigh Steinberg says NCAA could have prevented NIL madness

The name, image and likeness revolution with college athletes has brought a boomtown mentality to NCAA sports. Money flowing, little to no regulation.

And it could have been avoided, said Leigh Steinberg, perhaps America’s most iconic sports agent.

Steinberg was a guest when I filled in as a host on The Sports Animal radio network this week, and Steinberg talked about a variety of issues facing college sports. Foremost, NIL.

“We had some time to prepare for this,” said the Los Angeles-based Steinberg. “California passed a law about three years ago. So you could see this coming.

“If the NCAA had reacted quicker and just loosened up a little bit, they could have saved themselves from this new system. But they didn’t, and they held on too tight. So we had time to prepare for it.”

Steinberg, the inspiration for the Tom Cruise title character in the 1996 film “Jerry Maguire,” has represented 64 first-round picks in the NFL Draft and eight overall No. 1 picks. His agency has dipped into the NIL ranks, and Steinberg signed then-OU quarterback Spencer Rattler last summer, after NIL became reality, courtesy of a Supreme Court ruling.

Steinberg said NIL marketing is a balance.

“Fundamentally, it’s a balance between marketing a player and branding a player,” Steinberg said. “On one hand, so they can do deals. But on the other hand, trying not to put up so many deals and so much at an early point in someone’s career, that it puts too much pressure on them.

“It’s sort of like looking at Baker Mayfield on every ad. You know, what has he done on the field to justify that?”

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Steinberg represents Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

“In the first two years of Mahomes’ career, I advised him not to do endorsements,” Steinberg said. “So even though he was MVP of the league the first year (as a starter), we weren’t doing much. That was to make sure that the engine that pulled the train was a success on the field.

“It takes time to adapt. Fans can become merciless. So why expose yourself?”

That was in part the Rattler story. Rattler garnered a reported $100,000 from a Chicago memorabilia convention signing last summer, but the Sooners struggled early in the season, Rattler was booed, eventually lost the quarterback job to Caleb Williams and has transferred to South Carolina.

Steinberg said NIL has “really taken colleges by storm.

“Everyone assumed it would be just the football quarterbacks. But there have been people like Phil Knight, who gave a stipend to, through Nike, every single Oregon athlete. There’s a college in Colorado, every female athlete. There’s people like Sam’s Club that gave out a bunch of endorsement deals to people with the first name Sam. Jack-in-the-Box gave out a bunch to people named Jack.

“There’s a lot of creativity going into this, and honestly if you look through this, it’s a way for alums of a college who own businesses to be able to fund money to players, in a legitimate way.”

Steinberg, 72, has spent more than 40 years dealing with professional athletes and their egos. He sees potential pitfalls with NIL.

“In team sports, you could have jealousy that would break a team apart, where one player’s getting all the largess riches, and the offensive linemen who block for him is resentful.

“Are you putting, again, too much pressure on a young man? Are you taking his focus away from developing his athletic skills and all the rest of it?”

Steinberg said this time of year once was the Super Bowl for agents, in terms of recruiting college players headed to the NFL.

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“You have 1,000 agents that are certified in football, but you also have people that are financial planners and do marketing, and NIL has now changed all this, by moving up the time to talk to a player,” Steinberg said.

“Normally, you wouldn’t talk to a football player or worry about it much for the draft, until they’re three years out of high school. Now all of a sudden, they can sign with a marketing agent, and if that agent also represents players and does a good job, let’s assume by missing out on signing a high school player as an NIL, an agent might be missing out on ever talking to him about representation. It’s very, very stiff.”

Steinberg said that in the same way coaches look for players who would be a good fit for their program or organization, he looks for clients who would be a good fit.

“The real key is profiling the type of player who fits and who might be attracted,” Steinberg said. “So I’m looking for role models who will go back and retrace their roots to the high school and college and professional community, by looking at their values and doing research and their family. That’s how you get a Patrick Mahomes or a Tua Tagovailoa.”

Steinberg for a quarter century has conducted academies for young agents or prospective agents.

“Trying to train the younger generation in being principled, ethical, in making a difference in the athletes’ lives,” Steinberg said. “How to recruit, how to negotiate. How to brand and market. How to do crisis control. How to set up a charitable foundation.

“You can do that. But the key is psychology. It’s, can you get into another person’s heart and mind and see the world the way they see it? If you can do that, you can forge a deeper relationship and actually fulfill someone.”

Agents are in some ways like sports media. Lots of people want to get into the business.

“Yeah, men love sports,” Steinberg said. “Football dominates America right now. And everybody in the world has conceptualized that job as more exciting than maybe what they’re doing, so there’s intense competition.”

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UCF shows signs in basketball

When the Big 12 staged its welcome ceremony for Central Florida back in September, commissioner Bob Bowlsby called UCF basketball coach Johnny Dawkins a “dear friend.”

Then Bowlsby noted that Dawkins was joining “a pretty salty basketball league.”

True enough. Big 12 hoops has been No. 1 in the ratings percentage index eight of the last nine years.

But what if the Big 12 is getting a pretty salty program in UCF?

The additions of Houston, Cincinnati and Brigham Young were widely hailed as more than enough to offset the exodus of OU and Texas basketball to the Southeastern Conference. The Big 12 profoundly will miss the Sooners and Longhorns in football. In basketball? Not so much, if it all.

Still, UCF was an afterthought. The Knights have meager hoops tradition. They are a relatively new Division I program, barely 30 years old.

Until 2019, Central Florida had been to four NCAA Tournaments. The Knights never had been higher than a 14-seed and were 0-4 in March Madness.

But in 2019, UCF was a 9-seed in Columbia, South Carolina, and whacked Virginia Commonwealth 73-68 in the first round of the 68-team bracket. Then the Knights famously played Duke and Zion Williamson to the wire, losing 77-76.

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And now Central Florida is making waves again. The Knights beat Memphis 74-64 Wednesday night in Orlando, and ESPN’s bracket projections have 10-4 UCF in the tournament as of today.

Such projections don’t mean much, two months out. But they are a sign that Dawkins’ program is making progress.

"To bounce back after two tough basketball games, our guys showed a lot of character,” Dawkins said. “We got back to playing UCF basketball, full court pressure, get after teams. That’s who we are. It was good to see our guys embrace what we do. And that’s what we did for 40 minutes.”

Houston made the Final Four last season under Kelvin Sampson. BYU and Cincinnati are traditionally strong programs. Those ESPN projections have Houston a 4-seed, BYU a 9-seed and UCF a 12-seed. Cincinnati, 12-5, is not included in the field.

Seven of the 10 Big 12 squads are in the bracket: No. 1 Baylor, No. 2 Kansas, No. 3 Texas Tech, No. 6 Iowa State, No. 6 Texas, No. 7 West Virginia and No. 8 OU.

So of the eventual 12 teams in the new-look Big 12, eight are in the field. That matches the 14-team Big Ten for the most in this current projection.

Dawkins gave UCF credibility when he was hired in March 2016. Dawkins was an all-American at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski in the mid-1980s, then played nine years in the NBA.

Dawkins spent 10 years as a Duke assistant coach, then was hired as head coach at Stanford, where he went 156-115. Dawkins coached the Cardinal to the 2014 Sweet 16, but that was Stanford’s only NCAA Tournament trip in Dawkins’ eight years.

He landed at UCF and begun building at a place with no history of success, but with a promising football landscape and a huge student body in a Floridian mecca.

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The Knights have been slow to build off the momentum of that 2019 March run, going 16-14 and 11-12 the last two seasons in the relatively-tough American Conference (Houston, Cincinnati, Memphis, Wichita State).

But this UCF team is showing promise, and the Knights’ Addition Financial Arena apparently was rocking against Memphis.

“When our building is filled up or mostly full, it’s an incredible environment,” Dawkins said. “I’ve played everywhere. And this is one of the best arenas, when it’s full, that I’ve ever been a part of.”

The Knights drew an announced crowd of 6,163 to the Memphis game. The arena seats 9,400. That Memphis crowd was a far better showing than the announced crowd of 3,268 a week earlier for Temple.

Still, that’s a long stretch from Allen Fieldhouse or Hilton Coliseum. Central Florida will be at a big disadvantage in Big 12 basketball unless its home crowds pick up big.

“Just encouraging the community to come out,” Dawkins said, “because I know we can do something special here. For us to do that, it’s going to take all of us.

“When I was hired, I said it’s not going to be just me as the coach or our players, it’s going to be our entire community. How much do we want it? If we want it bad enough, we can do something special here. Because it’s going to be one of the best homecourt advantages in the country.

“I’ve seen it. When we’ve had games of high magnitude, look at the energy. It really disrupted the opponent. It makes a difference.”

Central Florida will join the Big 12 in either 2023 or 2024. When the Knights get to the conference, the basketball might not be the albatross we thought.

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Mailbag: Lincoln Riley’s departure

On the Sports Animal this week, Al Eschbach suggested that Lincoln Riley turned out to be more Hollywood than Muleshoe, referencing Riley’s West Texas hometown.

I asked how that was possible. How a guy whose entire life has been spent in Muleshoe; Lubbock; Greenville, North Carolina; and Norman, could suddenly be Hollywood.

I offered up my long-held theory that Western Oklahomans and West Texans are very similar people, and somewhat different from the eastern brethren of their states. Western Oklahomans are open, trusting, down-to-Earth. You have to prove to people that you’re not their friend. On the eastern side of the state, you have to prove that you are their friend.

Richard: “I heard your comments about the people of West Texas and Oklahoma. I have to agree. Lincoln Riley is an exception. I had a school counselor I worked with in Bonham, Texas, years ago, and she grew up in Quanah and lived after retirement in Panhandle, Texas, as well. Her assessment is your renegades and outlaws live where there’s more trees to hide behind. You can’t be very ‘bad’ in the West because there’s nothing to hide behind. I intend to and will contribute to the creation of a new colloquialism of saying ‘I’m not a Lincoln Riley, I leave things better than when I found them.’ It seems like the aftermath of his leaving will never end.”

Tramel: Good stuff. And I like that thought. It’s like what I wrote about Sherri Coale when she retired. She said she always wants to leave places better than she found them. And Coale did that with OU women’s basketball. Riley did not with OU football.

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The List: Big 12 basketball veterans

The rampant transfers in college basketball have made their mark in the Big 12, so much so that it’s difficult to find many veterans on conference rosters. Of the Big 12’s top 40 scorers, only 10 were in the league two seasons ago:

1. Ochai Agbaji, Kansas: Leads the Big 12 with 20.6 points a game and is a four-year starter for the Jayhawks.

2. Taz Sherman, West Virginia: No. 2 scorer in the Big 12, at 19.9, after averaging 13.4 a year ago. Sherman averaged 13.1 minutes per game as a freshman two seasons ago.

3. Christian Braun, Kansas: The Big 12’s fifth-leading scorer, at 16.1 points a game. Braun started all 30 KU games a year ago and averaged 18.4 minutes a game as a freshman in 2019-20.

4. Sean McNeil, West Virginia: Averaging 14.6 points a game, seventh in the conference. McNeil averaged 12.2 points a game for the Mountaineers a year ago and 15.0 minutes a game for WVU as a freshman in 2019-20.

5. Kevin McCullar, Texas Tech: Ranked 11th in Big 12 scoring at 12.8 points a game, McCullar averaged 10.4 a year ago and 18.6 minutes as a freshman in 2019-20.

6. Avery Anderson, OSU: Averaging 10.8 points a game, 19th in the Big 12. Anderson averaged 12.2 points a game a year ago and 15.3 minutes a game as a freshman in 2019-20.

7. Andrew Jones, Texas: An all-time Big 12 basketball veteran. Jones is averaging 10.5 points a game, 22nd in the Big 12. But this is his sixth season as a Longhorn, with medical waivers and the Covid exemption. Jones has started 77 of 117 career games, averaging 27.2 minutes.

8. Jalen Hill, OU: 30th in Big 12 scoring at 9.6 points a game. Hill averaged 4.4 points a game a year ago and 10.9 minutes a game in 2019-20 as a freshman.

9. Courtney Ramey, Texas: Averaging 9.3 points a game, 33rd in the Big 12. Ramey is a four-year Longhorn who has made 88 starts, played in 110 games and averaged 12.2, 10.9 and 8.1 points over the previous three seasons.

10. Matthew Mayer, Baylor: Averaging 8.6 points a game, 37th in the Big 12. Mayer is in his fourth year with the Bears and never started a game until this season. But he played in all but one Baylor game the previous three years, averaging 13.0 minutes and 6.4 points a game.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ole MIss quarterback Matt Corral credits OU football's Jeff Lebby