All Sooners

Oklahoma 2023 Report Cards: RBs Started Slow, Had Moments, Thrived Late

DeMarco Murray couldn't identify an RB1 the first half of the season, but when Gavin Sawchuk finally got healthy, he elevated the position.

John E. Hoover

Oklahoma 2023 Report Cards: RBs Started Slow, Had Moments, Thrived Late
Oklahoma 2023 Report Cards: RBs Started Slow, Had Moments, Thrived Late /
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Once DeMarco Murray figured it out, Oklahoma’s running back room became lethal.

But it did take a while.

The Sooners started five different players at running back in 2023 — and the fifth one was definitively the best.

Gavin Sawchuk finally got healthy over the second half of the season, forced himself into the starting lineup and never let go, racing for at least 100 yards in each of the Sooners’ final five games.

But as good as Sawchuk was down the stretch for the Sooners, it was a bit of a challenge to get there.

Walk-on Tawee Walker started the season opener, but senior Marcus Major got the call in Week 2. Projected starter Jovantae Barnes started Week 3, but it was Major on the field when Big 12 play began at Cincinnati.

The real oddity of it all was in the game-to-game production.

Gavin Sawchuk
Gavin Sawchuk :: SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN-USA TODAY NETWORK

Walker started but opened the season with just eight carries against Arkansas State. Major got just eight carries in his first start, while Walker got hot and ran 21 times for 117 yards against SMU. But then Walker didn’t get any carries at Tulsa while Barnes had his best game of the year with 13 carries for 68 yards. Major didn’t run it at all against TU, but carried 15 times for 63 yards at Cincy and a career-high 19 times for 66 yards against Iowa State. Walker ran the ball 15 times for 46 yards and scored twice against Texas, then was suspended the following game against UCF while Major ran it 18 times for 82 yards.

That roiling rotation caused head coach Brent Venables to utter some version of “we need to find a rhythm at running back” almost every week.

But what they really found was a healthy Sawchuk, who began the preseason with a sore hamstring and never looked 100 percent until his first start of the season, a tense home win over Central Florida in which he ran 10 times for 63 yards and a late 30-yard touchdown run to all but clinch it. It was, to that point, OU’s longest run of the year and seemed like the one element the Oklahoma running game had been missing.

Barnes had almost seemed like the incumbent, coming off 550 yards and five TDs as a true freshman as Eric Gray’s backup. But Barnes suffered an undiagnosed foot injury in 2022, had a surgical procedure to fix it last spring and could never get healthy enough to carry the load in the fall.

Major had the most opportunities to seize the job in 2023, with four early starts and volume carries in three games and 26 total carries in his other three games. Lingering and nagging health issues, however, kept him from keeping a grip on the job.

Walker was no doubt a nice story, a walk-on, junior college transfer, prep school alumni, high school defensive back who didn’t play much last year but quickly emerged this year as a fearless, powerful runner whose low center of gravity knocked defenders backward with a violent thud.

Ultimately, it was Walker’s “in-house suspension” against UCF and his ankle injury at Kansas that finally opened the door for Sawchuk to explode onto the scene.

Sawchuk’s touchdown against UCF showed explosiveness and finishing speed.

2023 Oklahoma Report Cards

Still, it was Walker who strafed Kansas for a career-high 146 yards and a touchdown while Sawchuk was held to six carries for 19 yards and a score.

Then, with Walker limited by the sore ankle at Oklahoma State, Sawchuk slashed the Cowboys for 111 yards and a TD on just 13 carries.

The following week, he ran it 22 times for 135 yards against West Virginia.

Then he hung 107 yards and an important touchdown on BYU on just 14 carries.

Sawchuk finished strong with 130 yards and three touchdowns on 22 carries.

He then carved up Arizona for 134 yards and a TD on just 15 carries in the Alamo Bowl before he appeared to reaggravate the hamstring.

In his fabulous five-game finish, Sawchuk averaged 123.4 yards per game and 7.2 yards per carry and scored six touchdowns.

In all, Sawchuk ran it 120 times for 744 yards and scored nine TDs this season, while Walker was second on the team with 102 attempts for 513 yards and seven touchdowns. Major was next (behind QB Dillon Gabriel) with 308 yards and a TD on 78 carries, and Barnes got 37 carries for 140 yards and a touchdown.

Freshmen Daylan Smothers (11-42) and Kalib Hicks (3-14) got spot duty in their rookie season.

Walker, Major and Smothers all hit the transfer portal after the season. But incoming freshmen Taylor Tatum and Xavier Robinson seek to break into Murray’s rotation, and Tennessee-Martin transfer Samuel Franklin, who ran for 11 touchdowns and nearly 1,400 yards in FCS last season, should make an impact as well.

Murray, who just finished his fifth season as a coach, will have a lot of options from which to choose next year, led by Sawchuk.

If they can come together and find that rhythm Venables so often sought to attain last year, the Sooners’ 2024 running back room could be absolutely loaded.

AllSooners RB Grades

  • Hoover: B-
  • Chapman: C+
  • Sweet: C+
  • Lovelace: B-
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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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