Oklahoma RB Taylor Tatum Showed Why He's Ready for More Action

After arriving at OU over the summer, the No. 1 running back in the nation led the Sooners in rushing in last week's season opener.

Oklahoma running back Taylor Tatum / Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

NORMAN — Does Oklahoma have a running back controversy?

Of course not. It’s one game into the season. Friday’s opponent, Temple, wasn’t very good. The Sooners face a daunting SEC schedule. Over the next three months, DeMarco Murray is going to need every one of them at different times this year.

But no one can deny that OU freshman Taylor Tatum looked pretty special in his college debut against the Owls.

“Yeah, you can see his explosiveness, and he's got great power,” coach Brent Venables said Friday night. 

Murray, Venables’ running backs coach and himself a Sooner gridiron legend, was serving a one-game NCAA suspension for Level II recruiting violations. He wasn’t on the sidelines Friday. But if he was, would he have gotten Tatum a little more work?

Tatum, a freshman from Longview, TX, went into the opener listed fourth on the depth chart. He finished with just four carries. But he led the team with 66 yards rushing as the Sooners rolled to an easy 51-3 win.

“Oh, it felt great,” Tatum said. “And there’s no other place I’d rather do it. Just all the people, the crowd was definitely into it tonight. The stadium felt even bigger when you’re (in) it – better than when you’re a recruit on the sideline looking in. So … you just have a burst of adrenaline. I haven’t been hit since last year, like November. So just getting hit again, getting live-action speed again was definitely a great feeling.”

Tatum sliced off a 4-yard run on his first carry in the first quarter, a sudden, one-cut burst up the middle in which he made a defender miss at the line of scrimmage.

His second carry came midway through the fourth quarter, when he got the offense off the goal line with a 19-yard scamper. 

“Just be a running back,” Tatum said. “Find the hole, get vertical, make a couple moves and just make as many yards as you can.”

Two plays later, he caught a short pass from Michael Hawkins and gained 3 yards.

On the next play, he took a handoff up the middle, accelerated outside to the right and sprinted upfield for a 35-yard gain, the Sooners’ longest run of the night.

“I’m sure I just saw the hole,” Tatum said. “It was probably designed inside run. Linebacker fit the hole he was supposed to fit. I just – we both did our jobs. Found a hole, made a play. That’s probably what happened.”

Then he finished off that drive by taking a third-down option pitch from Hawkins, cutting upfield and scooting inside the pylon for OU’s only third-down conversion and final touchdown.

“I feel like on the whole we did pretty good,” Tatum said. “You score that many points, you’re doing something good. But obviously there’s always something to get better. Receivers blocked their butts off, o-line blocked their butts off. We still had some missed assignments. Everybody had something they could improve on tonight. Obviously we’re gonna enjoy the win, we’re gonna look forward and watch the film, but there’s always something to get better. So we’ll probably enjoy the win tonight, watch the film and get better for next week.”

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Tatum didn’t get to OU until he arrived for summer school in June. The presumption was that since he didn’t enroll in January and missed winter workouts and didn’t participate in spring practice, he would be behind.

He certainly didn’t look behind.  

“Runs through trash, and he’s got excellent top-end speed,” Venables said. “Really good natural instincts carrying the ball.”

Tatum’s last real competition came during the spring, when he played baseball for Longview. 

Even though it’s been while since he’s run with the football, Friday night felt very familiar to him.

“Oh yeah. For sure,” he said. “It took me a little bit on the summer and the fall camp to get my groove, but once I got that groove, I feel like, just keep getting better and better, and enjoy the process also.”

Oklahoma, of course, has a returning starter in third-year sophomore Gavin Sawchuk, who ran for 744 yards and nine touchdowns last year, averaging 6.2 yards per carry as he racked up five straight 100-yard games to finish the season.

The Sooners also have junior Jovantae Barnes, who gained 510 yards and five touchdowns as a true freshman but fought through a foot injury last year.

Also ahead of Tatum (they’re separated by an “OR” on the depth chart) is fourth-year junior Sam Franklin, a transfer from Tennessee-Martin who broke a 30-yard run on Friday and also showed elite speed. 

Murray will also try to find carries this season for redshirt freshman Kalib Hicks and maybe even true freshman Xavier Robinson.

It’ll be competitive all season, and Tatum will get what he earns. He was a consensus 4-star running back prospect coming out of high school, rated the No. 1 running back in the nation by 247 Sports, Rivals and ESPN and No. 2 by On3. Last year he became Longview’s career leader in rushing touchdowns, with 53, and ran for 1,463 yards and 23 total TDs as a senior, 1,840 yards and 36 scores as a junior. 

But high school accolades mean nothing to Murray when it comes to playing time.

Like Venables said, Tatum is a smooth, natural athlete, an asset in the passing game, an elite baseball player (he’ll head down to L. Dale Mitchell Park to help Skip Johnson’s squad next spring) who also excelled at track in high school (he anchored Longview’s 4x100 and 4x200 relays and won the district title with a 21.70 in the 2000).

Alabama wanted Tatum. So did Ohio State, Oregon, USC and just about everyone else. But OU won out because of the way Venables and Johnson worked together in recruiting him.

Oklahoma’s running back carries may be spread out among the group, like they were early last season. But it’s also likely that Murray finds his go-to guy and rides the hot hand — like he did late last season.

“I feel like we all know our role,” Tatum said. “I feel like we all push each other to a certain limit. I feel like we all have certain things that we do good. Everybody has their own little critiques and everything, but I don’t really (think) you have to get in and make a play. You just be yourself and run and do your job and be a good running back. Everybody’s here for a reason. It’s RBU. So we all just push each other.”