Dynamic and proven
Mark Andrews is going to be “a huge part of the offense,” the Sooners’ Baker Mayfield says.
NORMAN — Mark Andrews isn’t the fastest guy among Oklahoma’s pass catchers; that distinction falls to Marquise Brown, the mighty mite of a junior college transfer.
Andrews isn’t the most hyped in the group either; that would be graduate transfer Jeff Badet.
And Andrews doesn’t have the best hair (CeeDee Lamb and his twists) or the best name (Charleston Rambo. Charleston!
Rambo!) or even the fullest beard (Mykel Jones).
But here’s one superlative for Andrews — most important.
No Sooner pass catcher is more important than the junior tight end. Heck, no skill player not named Baker Mayfield is more important than Andrews. He is dynamic, and he is proven. No other pass catcher or ball runner on this OU roster can say that.
“Obviously, we need to get the ball to him more,” Mayfield said of Andrews. “He can run like a receiver, but he’s big enough where he can play with the big boys and block, too. He needs to be on the field at all times, and we need to utilize that.
“He’s going to be a huge part of the offense.”
For the Sooners’ sake, he’d better.
On a team that the preseason rankings have in the top 10 —and the Sooners don’t seem out of place there — playmakers who are both dynamic and proven are in short supply. Joe Mixon is gone. Ditto for Samaje Perine and Dede Westbrook.
Rodney Anderson and Abdul Adams seem like good options at running back. Badet and Brown and others have promise at wide receiver, though the loss of Nick Basquine to a season-ending Achilles
injury is a gut punch.
“There’s a lot of playmakers on this team,” Andrews said. “There’s a lot of production to be made up, so I’m really hopeful and I’m really excited to see the different guys step up and make up that production.”
What any of those guys do in the big-time spotlight of major-college football remains to be seen, but what Andrews can do is known. It’s proven. It’s sure.
And very, very good. Andrews is a matchup nightmare. He’s big at 6-foot-5, 254 pounds, but he’s still pretty fleet of foot for a guy his size. With his size, his skill and his dark brown hair, Andrews makes you think of former Sooner standout Trent Smith, who caught 61 passes as a junior and 46 as a senior.
Four or five catches a game. Sounds about right for Andrews.
He needs to get the ball and get it a bunch.
That will particularly be the case early in the season. When OU goes to Ohio State in Week 2, the environment will be menacing and the stakes will be significant. It will be the first time Anderson and Adams, Brown and most of these other skill guys will have experienced such things.
Last we saw Andrews, he showed what he can do in such circumstances. He had three catches for 68 yards and a touchdown against a stout Auburn defense in the Sugar Bowl.
That phenomenal catch-to-touchdown ratio is one of the hallmarks of Andrews’ career. Even though he caught only 19 passes two years ago, seven were for touchdowns. A year ago, that ratio went down a bit, but he still had seven touchdowns in 31 catches.
So, 50 catches and 14 touchdowns in his career.
Such numbers are nearly unheard of.
We could talk about why he doesn’t have more catches over the past couple seasons — Sterling Shepard two years ago and an injury to Andrews last year are the short answers to that question — but it’s more important to ask why he wouldn’t have more this season.
“I’m looking to catch the ball more,” Andrews said.
And by the sound of it, Mayfield is planning to throw it to him more.
Sooner head coach and play caller Lincoln Riley seemed a bit more noncommittal during the team’s media day on Saturday.
“He’s always going to be a good red-zone target,” Riley said. “What would be a good year? I don’t know if you can entirely define that, but we would expect him to be very productive, a matchup that we can really exploit.”
Red-zone, of course, but if I’m Riley and the Sooners, I’m throwing the ball to Andrews in all kinds of situations all over the field.
“In this type of offense ... ,” Andrews said, “it’s going to be really big for us to have the type of guy to go to and rely on in big situations.”
That guy is him.
He isn’t Sterling Shepard. He isn’t Dede Westbrook. He doesn’t look or play like the pass catchers who’ve been primary targets in OU’s latest adaptation of the Air Raid.
But when it comes to go-to options, no one is better than Mark Andrews.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at (405) 475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/ JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok or view her personality page at newsok.com/jennicarlson.