Depth at RB should help offensive transition
NORMAN—Not long before his inaugural season as Oklahoma's offensive coordinator in 2015, Lincoln Riley was asked about then-Sooners star Samaje Perine.
“Having a great running back, tome, is one of the biggest equalizers in college football,” Riley said way back then. “You can make up for a lot of things if you have talent there and we' re blessed to have that.”
That group of running backs including Joe Mixon as well.
While it' s hard to argue that this year's group of running backs are as potent as those two at the top, this group might be the deepest the Sooners have had since Riley's arrival.
“I don't know if we've had depth at running back like we do on this current team,” Riley said. “It's a great situation to be in. We like the skill level there. There's easily four, maybe five guys in that room that you'd have no problem giving a good share of carries at any point this season.”
That depth appears to have taken a hit with the apparent injury to T. J. P ledger, who posted on Instagram Friday night that he had undergone surgery.
Pledger's right arm was in a splint as he laid in a hospital bed in the picture.
With the Sooners replacing
four of the five offensive linemen from last year's team and breaking in a new quarterback — even if he's as experienced and accomplished as J al en Hurts is — the running back group gives Oklahoma a sense of stability that it figures to l ean heavily on, especially early in the season.
“I don't know if it magnifies it, but it's always important to us,” Riley said. “Those guys are a big part of our team. We know we've got good backs and a good amount of them right now. We do feel like we need to be able to run the football each and every week.”
While Tre y Ser mon a nd Kennedy Brooks are clearly the top two i n the group — the two combined to rush for more than 2,000 yards a year
ago — it goes beyond that duo.
“What I'm seeing right now is, I have a better room,” running backs coach Jay Boulware said .“All those guys have better acceleration. They're fit. Trey's a great leader. That starts from the top in that room.”
Oklahoma has needed to dig into its depth at running back before, even last year when Rodney Anderson suffered an injury early in the season helping lead to the emergence of Brooks.
Even if Pledger is out for a considerable amount of time, there's still depth at the spot.
Junior college product Rhamondre Stevenson had a teammate compare him to Jamaal Charles earlier this offseason. Then there's freshman
Marcus Major, the Millwood product that's a redshirt possibility because of depth but who Sermon said looked physically like an upperclassman in college already.
Wide receiver Ce e Dee Lamb is a part of a deep position group himself, but i t's the running backs, he said, that epitomize the “We too deep” chant that has become the Sooners' mantra over the past two decades.
“They've been at it for all three years I've been here,” Lamb said .“That doesn' t surprise me at all. They're `too deep.' Honestly. They don't get enough praise I feel like.”