Oklahoma football: Sooners running game hitting its stride

After working to find its footing, the Oklahoma run game appears to be on track in Norman, which is bad news for the rest of the teams on the Sooners’ schedule.

Lincoln Riley’s offenses have been guided by a Heisman-hopeful quarterback in each of the last four seasons, but the ability to run the football is at the heart of what makes the Sooner offense go.

The Sooners run a version of Mike Leach’s original Air Raid scheme, but in Oklahoma, that offense comes with a healthy dose of ground-and-pound. Whether it was Samaje Perine, Joe Mixon or Rodney Anderson, the Sooners have produced elite running backs since  Riley took the offensive reigns.

While the Sooners haven’t necessarily struggled to run the ball in any game this season so far, Anderson’s season-ending injury caused some concerns among outsiders that the ground element of the Oklahoma offense wouldn’t be able to produce the same kind of production as it had in previous years.

But over the last two weeks, against the best two defenses the Sooners have seen so far this year, Oklahoma has been downright dominant on the ground.

To understand the uptick in production we have to go back to Oklahoma’s first two conference games.

The week after Anderson’s injury the Sooners rushed for 171 yards on 39 carries against Iowa State for an average of 4.8 yards per rush. Quarterback Kyler Murray was the team’s leading rusher in the game with 77 yards on the ground.

Against Baylor the Sooners again finished under 200 yards rushing with 31 carries for 175 yards (a 3.1 yard average). Kennedy Brooks toppled the 100-yard mark, but a large part of that was due to a long run in the fourth quarter.

It wasn’t until Texas, against the usually-stingy Longhorns defense, that Oklahoma got into a groove running the ball.

The Sooners rushed 31 times for 222 yards, an average of 7.1 yards per carry, and wore down the Texas defense by the fourth quarter with Trey Sermon running through Longhorn arm tackles as part of a 21-point fourth quarter explosion.

While the Texas game marked a breakthrough, it was the TCU contest that served as Oklahoma’s return to true dominance on the ground.

For the first time in conference play the Sooners had two running backs – Kennedy Brooks and Trey Sermon – both break the 100-yard barrier as Oklahoma piled up 343 yards on 47 carries for an average of 7.2 yards per tote.

All of this came against the best statistical defense the Sooners had seen up to that point.

So what’s been the difference in the last six quarters for the Sooners? While  Brooks’ emergence certainly can’t fly under the radar when searching for an explanation, the real difference has come up front.

Oklahoma’s starting five of Creed Humphrey, Ben Powers Dru Samia, Cody Ford and Bobby Evans are starting to dominate opponents.

“I think up front we are really starting to come together and play some good football and every week we are going to continue to get better,”  Powers told the Daily Oklahoman.

The Sooners have adjusted as they moved some pieces around in the offseason and through the early part of 2018.

Both tackles Bobby Evans and Cody Ford were playing in new spots while Creed Humphrey and Jonathan Alvarez were rotating at the center position. Through the last few weeks things have become stable and with repetition has come improvement up front. The Sooners are taking the correct angles and climbing into the second level of defenses to give running backs clear lanes.

Even better news for Oklahoma is the Sooners have already faced the three best defenses  in the conference in TCU, Iowa State and Texas. They won’t face another top-flight defense until at least West Virginia in the season finale, so the Sooners should be able to continue their ground improvement over the next few weeks.

Last week’s injury to Trey Sermon is a bit concerning, but given the way Oklahoma has been  able to plug in running backs in the past don’t be surprised to see T.J. Pledger or Marcelias Sutton become the Sooners’ next 100-yard rusher this week against Kansas State.