Sooner Football Numbers You Need to Know: Erick Wren, No. 58
By Chip Rouse
Sooner football fans haven’t seen a lot of backup offensive lineman Erick Wren, but they’re likely to see a lot more of him in the immediate future.
Wren is in his second season at Oklahoma after attending Arizona Western Community College in Yuma, Ariz., for two years.
If Arizona Western sounds familiar to Sooner fans, its because it is the same school that brought former running back Damien Williams to Oklahoma (2012-13).
The 6-foot, 2-inch, 310-pound senior turned down scholarship offers to Division I-AA schools after two seasons at the JUCO level. Instead, he chose to walk on at Oklahoma, the program he always thought of growing up in Mesquite, Texas, as the center of the college football universe.
Told at an early age that he had a learning disability and would have trouble keeping up with other students, Wren refused to accept that he couldn’t do the same work that others did.
It certainly wasn’t easy, as Oklahoma City Oklahoman staff writer Ryan Aber found out when he interviewed Wren in this preseason. There were times in his early school years and again in high school when Wren doubted himself, but he persevered and never gave in.
That attitude and drive has allowed Wren to get where he is today, which is as the probable starting center when the Oklahoma gets back to action next Saturday at TCU.
Wren played in three games in the 2015 season. He played in OU’s second game this season in the win over Louisiana-Monroe, and he got an early call in the Ohio State game when starting left guard Cody Ford suffered a broken leg in the opening minutes of the game.
Jonathan Alvarez, who started the Ohio State game at center moved over to fill Ford’s guard spot, and Wren came in to take over at center for the remainder of the game and did very well.
In preseason training camp. offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh had this to say about Wren’s development in an interview with the Oklahoman’s Aber:
"“He’s got good power,” Bedenbaugh said. “He’s a little shorter than what you would like, but he has long arms, he’s got a lot of power in his lower body, he’s got good balance. He’s got all the traits you need…He’s playing at a pretty high level right now.”"
Some people thought Wren was going to be the starting center to begin the 2016 season. Now, it looks like he’s going to get that opportunity.