Mark D. Smith – USA TODAY Sports
The Oklahoma Sooners suffered through a very disappointing 2014 campaign, finishing at 8-5 after starting the year with Big 12 title and College Football Playoff aspirations, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of fans and players alike. Those residual bad feelings leave the door open for changes to happen on the Sooner depth chart this spring and no position could be shaken up quite like quarterback with Baker Mayfield set to make a run at the job.
Mayfield made headlines in 2013 when he decided to leave the Texas Tech Red Raiders to transfer to in-conference rival Oklahoma. As a walk-on freshman, Mayfield threw for 2,315 yards and 12 touchdowns despite appearing in just eight games, proving his incredible arm talent and ability to make big plays in the passing game. Ultimately, however, he left Tech after what he felt was a lack of communication from the coaching staff about their crowded quarterback depth chart at the time. Mayfield made a splash in the spring game for Oklahoma last year but was forced to sit out the season due to NCAA transfer rules.
He will join the Sooners this spring at the perfect opportunity to make a play for the starting quarterback job in 2015. Incumbent QB Trevor Knight failed to maintain the momentum of his 2014 Sugar Bowl performance against the Alabama Crimson Tide and really struggled to lead the OU offense with any consistency last season. In 10 games, Knight completed just 56.6 percent of his passes for 2,300 yards and 14 touchdowns with 12 interceptions while rushing for 339 yards and five rushing touchdowns. Under his leadership, the Oklahoma passing attack ranked No. 8 in the Big 12 last season and No. 85 in the nation, averaging just 203.5 yards per game through the air.
To make matters more difficult on himself, Knight finished the 2014 season on as low a note as he could possibly hit. After missing the final three games of the regular season due to injury, Knight returned to the starting lineup for the Russell Athletic Bowl against the Clemson Tigers. There, he played one of the worst games of his career, in part due to the incredible play of the Clemson defense, completing just 17-of-37 passes for 103 yards with zero touchdowns and three interceptions in a 40-6 blowout loss.
That, along with a litany of other factors, led to a massive overhaul of the Oklahoma coaching staff. Basically anyone not named Bob Stoops found new jobs this offseason, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, and opened the door for a major overhaul of the Sooner program. New coaching staffs often mean turnover in the depth chart to begin with, as new coaches find new players to fit their different schemes.
But Mayfield may be set up perfectly to take advantage of this coaching change. New Oklahoma offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley comes from the coaching tree of former Texas Tech and current Washington State Cougars head coach Mike Leach. He employs the same Air Raid style of his former coach and of Kliff Kingsbury, current Red Raiders head coach and former coach of Baker Mayfield. That familiarity will be a major asset to Mayfield as the team implements the new offense during spring practice.
While it certainly won’t be exactly the same kind of offense, there will undoubtedly be elements of the Air Raid incorporated into the playbook for next season to help give the Oklahoma passing attack a spark. Mayfield already has a full season playing in the Air Raid at Tech so he can hit the ground running the spring in showing what he can do. Knight, meanwhile, will be learning the concepts and terminology of the system, slowing down his progress as he tries to keep pace with Mayfield during the spring.
The Sooners are set up to be an incredibly balanced team in 2015 on offense that could make a serious push for a spot in the College Football Playoff. Samaje Perine emerged as a superstar during his freshman season in 2014, finishing No. 8 in the nation in rushing, No. 1 among freshman rushers, and setting the NCAA single-game rushing record against the Kansas Jayhawks. He figures to be even better next season and he’ll be helped by the addition of Joe Mixon, a five-star running back prospect who was suspended for the 2014 season.
But Oklahoma needs more than just a solid running game if they want to win like the Sooners are accustomed to. The receiving corps returns just about everyone for next season with the top four pass catchers set to come back, including Sterling Shepard who led OU with 51 receptions for 970 yards and five touchdowns a year ago. None of that talent at receiver will matter, however, unless the team gets better production from their quarterback.
Oklahoma has enjoyed tremendous success under Stoops and will be anxious to return to their winning ways in 2015. That will mean that the team will be more receptive to making changes to their roster if it will help them break through and once again contend for the Big 12 title. With the landscape of the conference changing and other teams consistently improving each year, the ability for Stoops to cling to the old way of doing things has evaporated.
That change is likely to benefit the likes of Baker Mayfield. When he came to Oklahoma, many people thought he was crazy to leave Texas Tech, where he was in the mix to start, to join the Sooners, a team that appeared to be loaded at quarterback after Knight’s heroics against Alabama. But with a little patience and a bit of luck, Mayfield looks to be in a position to make his mark on the Sooners next fall.
There is obviously no guarantee that a change in quarterback will help the Sooners improve their standing in 2015 but standing pat with what didn’t work last season doesn’t feel like an option in Norman. Trevor Knight is a talented quarterback, to be sure, and won’t give up his spot as the No. 1 QB without a fight but Baker Mayfield has the tools and the experience to make a push for playing time this spring.
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