Another season of coaching with Brent Venables in Norman and Jeff Lebby got the chance to help his alma mater really improve drastically from year one to year two.

The sort of improvement that the Ole Miss Rebels demonstrated? That’s the sort of improvement Oklahoma had in year two. And again, Lebby’s offense really helped lead the way for that success (though Venables and the Sooners’ defense showed up in a big way on more than one occasion).

And because of the way the Sooners played on offense (even if there are some OU football fans who weren’t thrilled with some of the in-game decision making that was being done on this side of the ball), Oklahoma was able to get to double digit wins.

It really is, in many ways, a similar story to what Lebby helped write for the 2021 Ole Miss Rebels. Year one helped get the system in place and year two saw the offense continue to thrive as the team as a whole improved.

1. Drake Stoops caught a remarkable number of passes for the 2023 Sooners
2. 2023 Oklahoma Sooners stats: Wide receivers

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This is part of a project of tracking the entirety of Jeff Lebby’s offenses (prior to his stop in Starkville, for now at least). So, here you go. This is just one slice of the project.

Drake Stoops caught a remarkable number of passes for the 2023 Sooners

Looking at what happened with the wide receivers for the 2023 Oklahoma Sooners and you’ll find that Drake Stoops was far and away the leader in receptions for Lebby’s offense, but he didn’t maximize it in the way that some of Lebby’s previous receivers did.

Stoops did well, catching 84 passes for 962 yards (11.45 yards per catch) and 10 touchdowns, but it’s worth wondering if things could have been a bit better if there was more of a true deep threat to help stretch the field more regularly for the Sooners.

For comparison’s sake, Stoops is the only wide receiver in any of Lebby’s offenses dating back to 2017 to catch more than 60 passes and not break the 1000 yard receiving mark.

That doesn’t mean he didn’t accomplish great things, it just means that things were schemed a bit differently based on personnel for the Sooners.

Still, while this is worth examining a bit, I’m not sure that really matters all that much in anything other than possibly looking at how things were schemed differently (go check with Ian Boyd at America’s War Game or Andrew Miller at Maroon and White Nation for that sort of info). Also, he was 38 yards shy of getting there.

2023 Oklahoma Sooners stats: Wide receivers

Player	REC	YDS	TD
Drake Stoops	84	962	10
Nic Anderson	38	798	10
Jalil Farooq	45	694	2
Andrel Anthony	27	429	1
Jayden Gibson	14	375	5
Brenen Thompson	7	241	2
Gavin Freeman	19	95	1
Jaquaize Pettaway	11	70	0
LV Bunkley-Shelton	3	33	0

Elsewhere on the field, Nic Anderson caught 38 passes for 798 yards and another 10 touchdowns. Meanwhile, Jalil Farooq added an additional 694 yards and two touchdowns. And that’s a really solid top three group of receivers for a team. 

OU’s offense wasn’t perfect last season, but Mississippi State fans would more than welcome that sort of showing from a group of wide receivers.