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After taking it to the Alabama Crimson Tide in last season’s Allstate Sugar Bowl, expectations were sky high for the Oklahoma Sooners this fall. Bob Stoops had seemingly found a star under center in Trevor Knight that was going to take his squad over the top and into the College Football Playoff conversation.
While the Sooners have fallen short of that goal and dealt with some major disappointments, not all has been lost this season thanks to the emergence of true freshman and budding superstar Samaje Perine.
Perine’s first season on campus was supposed to be somewhat quiet. While he was a highly touted recruit, ranked as the No. 17 running back in the country for the 2014 recruiting class, but was overshadowed in the Oklahoma freshmen group thanks to the signing of the No. 6 running back in the country, Joe Mixon. The 6-foot-1, 209-pound incoming freshman was the crown jewel of the Sooner class and was expected by many to make an immediate impact by planting himself at the top of a wide-open Oklahoma backfield depth chart this fall.
But Mixon never made it to the football field. Following an incident with a 20-year old woman that left her with broken bones in her jaw, Mixon was suspended from the football team for the entire season while he dealt with charges of assault. Mixon has since reached a plea deal and will avoid jail time, though his future with the Sooners has yet to be determined.
That put pressure on Keith Ford, one of the few returning players on the roster who played a significant part in the Oklahoma running game last season. The Sooners were trying to reload a rushing attack that lost four seniors from the 2013 season and wouldn’t have the services of Blake Bell at quarterback, who finished fifth on the team in rushing last year. As a freshman, Ford carried the ball 23 times for 134 yards and a touchdown which made him the most experienced option out of the backfield for an Oklahoma team with lofty goals for the 2014 season.
At the start of the season, it looked like he would be able to handle the role as the leader of OU’s stable of running backs. In the first three games of the season, Ford rushed for five touchdowns before getting injured against the Tennessee Volunteers that would keep him sidelined for five games. During that time, Perine seized control of the opportunity to show what he could do and quickly proved that he was ready to become the workhorse back for the Sooners’ offense.
After rushing the ball just 32 times for 177 yards and a touchdown over his first three games on the team, Perine exploded in his first game as the featured back. On the road against the West Virginia Mountaineers, Perine put the team on his back and racked up 242 yards on 34 carries with four rushing touchdowns. From there, the offense started running through the 5-foot-11, 243-pound freshman and the Sooners’ success has hinged on Perine’s ability to churn out yardage on the ground.
Since taking over the featured back role, Perine has caught fire as the workhorse for the Oklahoma offense. He has rushed for over 100 yards in four of the eight games since the road trip to West Virginia with at least 24 carries in five games while scoring at least one touchdown in seven of the last eight games. Three times, he’s eclipsed 200 yards on the ground and last week he set the NCAA single-game rushing record with 427 yards and five touchdowns on 34 carries against the Kansas Jayhawks.
His emergence as a focal point of the offense has been a huge boost to the Sooners’ fortunes in 2014. Knight was expected to take the momentum of his Sugar Bowl performance and lead Oklahoma to new heights this fall. While he has flashed big-play ability, he’s ranked just fifth in the Big 12 in passing efficiency and sixth in passing yards per game while completing less than 60 percent of his passing attempts. Add in the failed appeal of Dorial Green-Beckham to get on the field right away and the attrition in the backfield, and Oklahoma desperately needed a spark on the offensive side of the ball.
Through 11 games this season, Perine has amassed 1,428 yards and 19 touchdowns on 214 carries. He leads the Big 12 in yards, yards per game, touchdowns, and carries which is all the more impressive when you consider that he wasn’t even the featured back until the fourth game of the season. His numbers rank tenth in the nation in yards per game and fourth in rushing touchdowns.
To put his exploits into even further perspective, his stats across the board this season are better than Doak Walker Award finalist Ameer Abdullah of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
While the team’s three losses this season have ended their chances at a Big 12 title or any legitimate shot at the College Football Playoff, the arrival of Perine bodes well for the future of the Oklahoma program. He has shown the kind of talent that a team can build around and find great success in, much like the Sooners did once before with former star running back Adrian Peterson. Add in the young core of talent with players like Knight and Ford coming back for their junior seasons next fall and the Sooners become very legitimate contenders for a national title again in 2015.
There’s no question that Stoops and the Sooners were hoping for bigger and better things in 2014. But while they fell short this season, they have discovered a talent in Perine that will help them build toward their ultimate goal of competing for national titles in the very near future. His breakout freshman campaign will pave the way for huge success both for himself and for his program.
Is Perine the man to carry Oklahoma back to the top of the college football world and capitalize on the tremendous potential he’s displayed during his freshman campaign to go down as one of the all-time legends in college football?
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