Saturday’s Mississippi State-South Carolina game comes with an awkward little subplot that has nothing to do with the SEC standings and everything to do with family.
Kendal Briles, South Carolina’s offensive coordinator, will be on one sideline. Jeff Lebby, Mississippi State’s head coach, will be on the other. And somewhere inside Williams-Brice Stadium, Staley Lebby - Briles’ sister and Lebby’s wife - will be watching as the brothers-in-law meet for the fourth time.
“It’s not a game my parents have circled that they want to go show up to, or my older sister,” Briles said. “It’s just not fun because you feel … obviously, you’re excited if you’re on the winning side but then you feel bad for the other person.”
The matchup kicks off at 4:15 p.m., and both coaches have been down this road before. Briles and Lebby were together at Baylor, a stint that eventually led to Lebby marrying Staley in 2011.
Since then, they’ve crossed paths three times on opposite sidelines. Lebby beat Briles in 2023 when his Oklahoma team faced Briles’ TCU.
The two split the first two meetings, with Lebby at Ole Miss and Briles at Arkansas.
Lebby made clear this week that the family piece is real, even if neither coach wants to linger on it.
“We haven’t really talked about it,” Briles said over the summer. “I mean, the only thing that’s been in discussions, it’s just, it’s no fun for anybody.”
Lebby echoed that sentiment while also making room for the fact that this is part of the job they both chose.
“This is something we don’t enjoy. This is the third time doing it and again for … I guess the fourth time doing it,” Lebby said. “But it’s not something we enjoy as family, but incredibly blessed to both be in the situations that we’re in and both looking to take advantage of the situation.”
He added: “Don’t have a lot of friends in the business, not really who I am. Obviously, Kendal’s family, so being able to talk ball and talk shop through the offseason, growing together in this profession has been a ton of fun,” Lebby said.
“His successes I’ve loved just like he’s loved my opportunities. There’s a ton of history, incredibly close, and again for us, incredibly blessed to be be doing what we’re getting to do right now.”
The two men did not spend the summer breaking down this matchup with each other, and if they’ve exchanged messages this week, it sounds like the conversation stayed away from the family drama. Golf scores and the best wing spot in town were more likely topics than game plans.
On the field, there’s at least some schematic overlap. Both teams lean toward up-tempo offense, with mobile quarterbacks and a style that can make a defense feel like it’s always one snap away from another problem. South Carolina has been a little more measured in showing it through its first two games, but the approach is familiar on both sides.
“There’s familiarity, obviously, just from a play-style standpoint. I think play design, some differences, but attacking and running the football and playing with tempo, changing the tempos.
Those are all things that our defense is able to see every single day and their defense is seeing it every single day,” Lebby said. “So again, there is familiarity, both sides.”
There’s family on the South Carolina side of the equation too. Shane Beamer’s wife, Emily, was born and raised in Starkville, and the two met when Beamer was an assistant coach at Mississippi State. That means there will be a healthy mix of maroon and garnet among the extended families when the game is played.
For Briles and Lebby, though, the most comfortable part of Saturday may be the part that lasts only 60 minutes: the game itself.
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