Can the Oklahoma Sooners get Eric Gray more involved?
One of the hot names to come out of the transfer portal this Spring to the Oklahoma Sooners was running back Eric Gray. During his time at Tennessee, Gray displayed quickness, explosiveness, and big-play ability that the Sooners needed at the running back position. It didn’t take long in Oklahoma’s Spring game for those traits to jump off the screen as Gray made Oklahoma defenders miss in the open field for a touchdown.
Early in the season, it looked like Gray would be a major focal point of the offense, often taking the lion’s share of the carries at running back against Nebraska and again vs. West Virginia.
After a really nice game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers in which Gray carried the ball 15 times for 84 yards, he struggled — as most of the team did — against West Virginia, accumulating just 38 yards on 12 carries. Since then, the touches have dropped off dramatically.
After seeing at least 35 snaps in games against Tulane, Nebraska, and West Virginia, Gray’s hasn’t seen more than 27 snaps in a game since. Over the last four games, he’s been on the field for 21 or fewer snaps in each contest.
When asked about Eric Gray’s usage on Tuesday, Lincoln Riley said, “It’s a little bit unpredictable. We played him the lion’s share of the snaps early on in the season. Kennedy got kind of hot there midseason and we rode the hot hand a little bit more than we did Eric. Honestly, I know I’ve said it up here a few times, he’s a guy…there’s a few of them offensively right now that we want to continue to find ways to get them more involved.”
The Oklahoma Sooners have a lot of skill position players that need the ball in their hands and that’s part of the reason for a lack of usage. At the same time, as we saw on Saturday against Baylor, one touch from Gray and the Sooners have a chance for a big play. According to Riley, getting the ball to Gray is a priority, but game script hasn’t always allowed for it. Riley said, “Some of this has just been the ways that some of these games have evolved that haven’t opened it up to as many opportunities.”
Riley continued, “There’s been a lot of times that we’ve had a plan in place to play him more, put the ball in his hands more because he’s done some good things. He did some really nice things with the ball the other day. There was a handful of guys from an offensive skill point that were playing pretty well the other day that we wish could have gotten more opportunities and Eric’s certainly one of them.”
With two tough defensive opponents coming up in Iowa State and Oklahoma State, the Sooners’ offensive staff needs to make getting Gray the ball in space a priority. They’ve done a good job on the swing pass to create big plays. That and screen passes to the talented running back could go a long way to taking some of the pressure off of their young quarterback during the final two games of the season.
With a chance to get into the Big 12 title game, the Sooners need to figure some things out offensively and getting Eric Gray more involved might be the key.
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