Oklahoma’s offensive line is running out of bodies, and the loss to No. 15 Kentucky only made that more obvious.
The Sooners fell 21-13 Saturday at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, and while the offense had some decent stretches, the front five was in rough shape before the game even started. Oklahoma was already without left tackle Michael Fasusi, who has played 17 snaps all year, plus guards Eddy Pierre-Louis and Heath Ozaeta.
Then the situation got worse late in the third quarter when Ryan Fodje went down.
The sophomore tried to keep going, coming back with a wrap on his right ankle that looked like a thick cast, but it didn’t help much. He was clearly limited, and his return ended up hurting the offense more than helping it.
Fodje had entered the season projected to start at right guard. When Jake Maikkula got hurt in fall camp, Fodje shifted into the backup center role, even though Oklahoma had also brought in Western Kentucky transfer Caleb Nitta, who dealt with injuries of his own during spring ball.
Once Fasusi got hurt, Fodje moved again, sliding from right guard or center to the left side of the line.
When he initially exited against the Wildcats, the replacement was actually Peyton Joseph, the Georgia Tech transfer and backup guard. Fred Hinton, who is really an offensive tackle, eventually took over.
It’s the kind of shuffle that would bury Toledo, and it’s not a workable answer at Oklahoma.
Brent Venables pointed to the issues up front before the Texas game, but after Saturday’s loss he didn’t seem eager to beat up the group any further. Maybe the feeling now is that this is what the line is, and it’s not going to suddenly fix itself over the next few weeks.
The encouraging news is that Fasusi’s return is close, and his teammates are eager to have the captain back.
“Fasusi’s an animal,” freshman defensive end Jake Kreul said after the loss. “He has made me so much better, especially in the run game, because I don’t think there’s a better run blocker than that dude.
A guy like Mike, no one wants to be on the field more than him. I see him every day fighting to get back on the field and I want him back on the field because he makes me better and he makes our team better.”
Still, that can’t be treated like the cure-all.
Even if Ozaeta is back next week, Oklahoma could still be without Fodje, and that still doesn’t solve the problem at right tackle, where Arkansas transfer E’Marion Harris has struggled badly.
A starting five of Fasusi, Noah Best, Maikkula, Ozaeta and Harris at least looked possible when the season began. But with injuries stacking up and little depth behind them, the Sooners are now in survival mode, trying to patch together a line and restore some confidence to a unit that has lost its footing.
The schedule won’t make any of this easier. With SEC games coming every week, there’s no real runway for players to rest up and get back to full strength. Whoever is out there is going to be fighting through pain, and that’s a problem for a line that has shown little improvement under Bill Bedenbaugh since the move to the new league.
“This is a team sport. It’s not an individual sport.
So we’ve got to stay together no matter what,” Kreul said. “… I think they’re gonna get those things fixed, get those things together.
And once that they get that, they can be as good as anyone in the country.”
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Kentucky did what gritty road winners often do: it stayed alive, kept pressure on, and made Oklahoma pay for turnovers at every turn. The Wildcats did not need to dominate the stat sheet to leave Norman with the result they wanted, and for the Sooners the frustrating part is how much the game felt there for the taking before the giveaways took over. [Read more 🡒]