Oklahoma Sooners offensive line set to turn to young freshmen amid injuries, inconsistent play from starters
The Oklahoma Sooners have just four games left of their 2024 regular season, which is pretty startling to write, as I feel like their kickoff game against Temple was just a few weeks ago. The Sooners will take on Maine this week, followed by Missouri, Alabama, and LSU to close out their first season in […]
The Oklahoma Sooners have just four games left of their 2024 regular season, which is pretty startling to write, as I feel like their kickoff game against Temple was just a few weeks ago.
The Sooners will take on Maine this week, followed by Missouri, Alabama, and LSU to close out their first season in the SEC.
With just four games left in the season, this opens up the possibility of some of the younger players getting a shot in the lineup without burning their redshirts.
Some of those players who could get a shot are some of the freshmen on the offensive line. Head coach Brent Venables said last week they had plans to get freshman Eddy Pierre-Louis more involved on offense. This week, Venables spoke about another freshman who has reportedly impressed coaches: Offensive tackle Isaiah Autry-Dent.
Jacob Sexton suffered an injury against Ole Miss, and it was his injury that spiraled part of the offensive line's downfall at the end of that game.
Starting right tackle Jake Taylor also missed the Ole Miss game with an injury, so the Sooners could be without either tackle for at least this week.
This feels like a prudent move to make. Let the young guys play across the lineup, in my opinion. They had to provide some sort of competition for Logan Howland, who got embarrassed by Ole Miss.
Autry-Dent is a 6-foot-6, 303-pound true freshman and was a consensus 3-star recruit in this past class. He has seemingly impressed the coaching staff in practice thus far, but they've been hesitant to call him up with the redshirt rule.
Where he plays will be interesting to see. He played left tackle in high school and could serve as Howland's competition on the left side with Michael Tarquin manning right tackle. Or perhaps they play Tarquin at left tackle and Autry-Dent at right tackle? If Taylor returns to play right, Tarquin could play left, and Autry-Dent could be replacing Howland there as the backup.
Either way, I'm just glad the staff is finally considering some of these younger players. I hope we get to see players like Autry-Dent, Pierre-Louis, Eugene Brooks, and Daniel Akinkunmi involved moving forward. We already know what the older players playing above them look like, and it hasn't been pretty for most of this season.
