How Oklahoma 'Raised the Standard' For Its Rushing Attack Against South Carolina

COLUMBIA, SC — Oklahoma found its running game on the way to South Carolina.

After rushing for 32 yards in OU’s first SEC win of the year over Auburn and 48 yards in last week’s defeat to Texas, the Sooners rushed for 50 yards on the opening drive.

True freshman Tory Blaylock ran for 45 yards on four carries by himself, and OU totaled 136 yards on the ground by halftime.

No. 14 Oklahoma ended the game with 171 rushing yards and a 26-7 win over South Carolina. The Sooners exit Williams-Brice Stadium victorious in their first-ever try, and they’ll head home to battle Ole Miss sitting at 6-1 overall and 2-1 in SEC contests.

Blaylock announced OU’s intentions early. He picked up 18 yards with the Sooners facing second-and-20 on the third snap of the game, and the rushing attack never looked back.

“It set the tone for how we wanted to be the entire day,” Oklahoma offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle said after the win. “Preached to these guys all week, and this morning in our meetings, that today is all about your mindset and your mentality. Tory did a great job getting up in there. The offensive line on that play got great movement, ID'd the right guys, went up to the backer, and the perimeter blocking by the receivers was awesome, too.

“But Tory ran hard. He ran with an unbelievable mentality of, ‘I’ve got to be really tough to take down right here.’ And he was, and it put us in a great position to keep the drive going.”

The support on the ground from Blaylock, Xavier Robinson, the offensive line and the tight ends meant John Mateer didn’t have to push the ball too far downfield in his second start after hand surgery.

Oklahoma’s longest completion of the day was the 20-yard touchdown grab by Isaiah Sategna at the end of the third quarter that put the Sooners up 24-7 and effectively ended the game.

In the end, Mateer needed to complete just 18-of-26 passes for 150 yards and a score, and the Sooners ended the game without a turnover.

Arbuckle was especially proud of how the offensive line bounced back after last week’s performance.

“The cool thing about football, and life in general, but football is that it's a never-ending response to the good and to the bad,” he said. “You look back, we didn't play the way we wanted to, and not just them, but everyone would say that we didn't play to our standard that we have. And they took it personal. They did a great job of having great humility and taking the coaching that needed to be given to them.

“And they responded. And they just kept responding. Kept responding every play today, whether it was good, whether it was bad. They truly moved on to the next play.”

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Blaylock finished with 101 yards and a score on 19 carries, marking his first 100-yard showing since OU’s road win over Temple.

He praised the leadership of right guard Febechi Nwaiwu throughout the week as Oklahoma looked to get back on track against the Gamecocks.

“Febechi was a really good leader all week,” Blaylock said. “He got those guys together at practice. When the twos go in, the ones are behind watching every rep, seeing how they could get better. Big props to him.

“Also, me and (Robinson), it’s just the same thing. The run game wasn’t all on them. There’s some things we were missing as well. Coach had us watching a lot of film this week. All our runs, we watched all our runs to see where we could get better, and we’ve seen what could get better, and we fixed it.”

Oklahoma Sooners, Tory Blayloc — Oklahoma running back Tory Blaylock bursts into the open field to score a touchdown against South Carolina. | Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

Robinson played a key role in Oklahoma’s second scoring drive.

He bounced a run outside for 25 yards, then he broke tackles for a 10-yard touchdown rush.

The Sooners’ second scoring drive spanned 92 yards across 13 plays. Six of those were rushes, totaling 56 yards.

Robinson finished with 11 carries, 58 yards and the one score, which represented his biggest workload since his 18 carry, 107-yard night against Alabama last year that resulted in two touchdowns.

“Tough runs today, some really good things to build off of,” OU coach Brent Venables said. “Had a good week of practice. And some of the same, he gets a little thin on some of the blocks. He knows how to work where they're set up and where they're a little vulnerable. Even if it's just two more yards, he knows where those spots are.

“And that's what a good running back needs to do, he needs to find those. I mean, he got through a good run, showed some good things today.”

South Carolina entered the week ranked 73rd in rushing yards allowed per game, but Saturday’s performance represented an important first step in getting the rushing attack back to where it needs to be.

“Absolutely. You know, Coach (Bill Bedenbaugh) emphasizes it every single time that we got to be the best we can be,” freshman offensive tackle Michael Fasusi said. “We’re capable of that. We’re capable of winning the Joe Moore Award. We got to win that expectation.

“It definitely raised the standard for us, and like I said, we’re going to keep getting better.”