Why Oklahoma RB Gavin Sawchuk is Attacking Preseason Camp

The Sooners' third-year running back is healthy in training camp for the first time, and he's using his reps and his bigger body to polish his skills and improve his durability.

Oklahoma running back Gavin Sawchuk / SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

NORMAN — Oklahoma running back Gavin Sawchuk says preseason training camp is hard.

The heat, the grinding schedule, the strain — it’s a lot.

But Sawchuk is running toward the fires of August. 

“Camp's a great opportunity,” he says. “ … It's really like one of my first camps fully healthy, fully back out there, so it's been great.” 

Sawchuk led the Sooners’ ground game last year with 744 yards and nine touchdowns. He averaged an impressive 6.2 yards per carry as a third-year sophomore, including more than 7 yards per attempt over the last five games.

It’s no coincidence that Sawchuk’s productivity rose the more he got the football. He reached double-digit carries in each of the last five games last year, which led to triple-digit yardage — 100 yards or more in each game.

That’s as many career 100-yard games as such OU luminaries as James Allen, Trey Sermon, Joe Wylie or Rhamondre Stevenson, and more than Prentice Gautt, Horace Ivory, Renaldo Works, Elvis Peacock or Kyler Murray.

And Sawchuk made his mark in five short weeks.

But Sawchuk knows he could have done more — more carries if he hadn’t started the season with a hamstring injury, more long runs if he had been able to make more defenders miss.

So this year, Sawchuk wants to start healthy and finish fast. And he set his offseason goals accordingly.

“Getting a little bit bigger, putting on a little bit of weight,” Sawchuk said in a post-practice interview Tuesday. “Continuing to be explosive, continuing to be fast, making guys miss in the open field. That's just stuff that I'm continuing to work on.”

The 5-foot-11 Sawchuk played as a true freshman out of Littleton, CO, at around 187 pounds. Last year, he had grown to 195. This year, his roster weight is an even 200.

His wish is to be thicker, stronger and heavier, which will add to his durability as he absorbs contact throughout the fall.

“Putting on a little bit more weight, talking with nutrition, just being able to take a couple more hits,” he said. “But also being a little bit stronger, being able to deliver the blow a little bit more, so I'm not taking so much. But it's been — I feel great so far.”

Last August, Sawchuk’s injury prevented him from doing much in training camp other than some light jogging, stretching and strength training.

Now healthy, he’s been able to attack the preseason, and that’s helped him get better as a running back. So he’s put more emphasis on seeing the field, attacking defenses with angles and leverage and getting a physical and mental edge on tacklers as he approaches contact.

“You can really only work on those things when you're out there on the football field going against other guys,” he said. “So just having those opportunities, those team sessions, those one-on-ones, whatever it may be, the opportunities to be able to use those skillsets to be able to make things happen, that's what I'm trying to do.”

As he begins his third season of college football, Sawchuk is also growing as a person and as a leader. 

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“We had a lot of guys leave, you know?” Sawchuk said. “Just trying to take on a leadership role. Still competing for jobs. Everybody's hungry, nothing's promised to anybody, so (I'm) out there competing, taking on the role, stepping up as a leader wherever I can, trying to be that for the team where I'm needed and just fitting in where I can.

“I think just learning the importance of team, learning the importance of having somebody that's a leader, having somebody that you can rely on, fall back on. That trust factor is really important and that's something we've really been emphasizing as a team, is just how can we grow as a team? How can we mesh well together? How can our leaders bring everyone together? It's always about player-led, not coach-fed. Player-led teams are the ones that go the distance, so that's what we're emphasizing.”

Sawchuk begins his third season with a nice little bonus: his little brother Gabe walked on as a freshman running back.

“He … was looking at couple different other schools, had the opportunity to come to Oklahoma and just loved it ever since,” Sawchuk said. “He was like ‘I’m gonna take my shot. I'm gonna take my opportunity.’ So it's been great having him here, great having family. 

“He gives another competitive aspect as well. I can't lose to my brother. So it's been a lot of fun.”