Oklahoma’s offense keeps saying the right things about the run game. The production, though, is telling a much harsher story.
After Saturday’s 41-13 loss to No. 2 Georgia, Brent Venables barely touched on the ground attack. His lone comment came when he said, “We were patient in the run game,” and the rest of his postgame remarks were mostly centered on quarterback John Mateer’s struggles.
Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle only brought it up once, too, and that came while he was answering a question about the offensive line.
The issue is impossible to ignore. Through four games, the Sooners are averaging just 99 yards rushing per game, a mark that leaves them behind all but nine FBS teams. None of the teams ranked below Oklahoma in that category has a winning record.
That lack of a consistent threat on the ground has shown up everywhere. Oklahoma has only two rushing touchdowns this season, and both came in the opener against UTEP. Since then, the Sooners have gone three straight games without finding the end zone on the ground.
That’s not a new problem. It’s the second time in three seasons Oklahoma has gone three consecutive games without a rushing touchdown.
The last time it happened was in the middle of the 2024 season, and after the second game in that stretch, offensive coordinator Seth Littrell was fired. Before that, Oklahoma hadn’t hit that drought since Howard Schnellenberger’s 1995 team.
The numbers from the Georgia game made the picture even worse. Oklahoma managed only 65 rushing yards, which gave it 126 over its last two games. That is the program’s lowest two-game total since 2012, and it’s the first time the Sooners have been held under 70 rushing yards in back-to-back games since 2001.
Even if you strip out sack yardage, the efficiency still wasn’t there. Oklahoma averaged just 2.5 yards per attempt.
Explosive runs have been just as scarce. The Sooners have only nine runs of 10 yards or more all season, and none over the last two games.
Their longest run of the year came from Ben McCreary, a transfer from Incarnate Word who hadn’t appeared in a collegiate game since 2023 at West Texas A&M. His 24-yard run late in the win over UTEP is one of only three runs of 15 yards or more by Oklahoma this season.
Starting running back Lloyd Avant has had his two best bursts of the year right out of the gate, with gains of 12 and 13 yards on Oklahoma’s first two offensive plays of the season.
The larger arc is even more striking. During Lincoln Riley’s seven seasons running the offense, Oklahoma averaged 220 yards per game on the ground and produced nine 1,000-yard rushers. The only season Riley didn’t have one was the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, when Rhamondre Stevenson was suspended for six games but still ran for 665 yards.
Venables’ first season in 2022 looked like a continuation of that standard. Oklahoma averaged 219.4 rushing yards per game and was led by Eric Gray, who piled up 1,366 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Since then, the decline has been steady: 182.2 yards per game in 2023, 144.2 in 2024 and 118.5 last season. The top individual numbers have fallen, too. Tory Blaylock led the Sooners with 480 yards last year, while Avant is leading the team through four games this season with 164 yards and a touchdown.
Unless that changes quickly, the downward trend will keep rolling into 2026, even though improving the run game was one of the major offensive priorities this offseason.
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Each of those transfers is finding a role elsewhere, and in different ways they are reminders of what Oklahoma could use right now. The Sooners are trying to patch together answers across the roster, and the contrast between those departures and the teams current challenges makes it fair to wonder how different things might look if even a couple of them had stayed in Norman. [Read more 🡒]