OU Football’s offensive line enters the LSU matchup hungry

They created scoring space on the first play when Jackson Arnold ran through the middle of the Alabama defense for a 12-yard gain.

That set the tone for the dominance the Sooners’ O-line would have in the 24-3 upset win over UA, as they helped the offense rack up 257 rushing yards and allowed just one sack.

“It’s been a long time coming,” right tackle Spencer Brown said this week. “We’ve been grinding for the last few weeks and the work finally showed, and the work showed Saturday night.”

OU’s offensive line is considered one of the worst in college football this season. They have allowed 42 sacks in 2024, which is 130th in the FBS. Through the first seven games of the season, their blocking had averaged just three yards per carry.

But something finally clicked in Oklahoma’s magical win over Alabama. Now coach Bill Bedenbaugh’s squad will try to keep going when the Sooners take on LSU in Death Valley on Saturday night at 6 p.m. You are hungry for more success.

“I can’t even articulate it. I’m still trying to digest what happened. Do you understand what I mean? But 24-hour rule,” Brown said. “We don’t allow ourselves to be seduced by success. We have to stick to the basics, keep going and look forward to the opportunity that is in front of us.”

So what exactly was different about this group in the Alabama game?

“I mean, it all just came together,” Brown said. “We worked. We don’t worry too much about what no one says on the outside, we just stuck to the basics and just did what we were trained to do. Perform at a high level and play for each other and for the coaches, the fans and everyone else.”

It certainly seemed to help that the Sooners’ offensive front found some cohesion. Eight different lineups were used in the first nine games.

Now the same group of Brown, Febechi Nwaiwu, Troy Everett, Heath Ozaeta and Logan Howland have played three straight contests together.

“I don’t think anything has changed per se,” said Nwaiwu, the right guard and reigning SEC offensive lineman of the week. “I think if you watch the film again you’ll see that every game we continued to improve, we kept our heads down. As we said at the start of the season, we knew it would take a lot of work to get us to feel like an elite offense.

“I still don’t think we’re there yet. I still think there are a lot of things we can work on, but of course Saturday felt great. It was a good step forward, but it’s not done yet.”

There are several personalities on offense who have made great progress in a short period of time.

Some OU fans might have been ready to throw in the towel on Howland and Ozaeta after they helped the line give up a record number of sacks in losses to South Carolina and LSU.

However, they have since settled in well and shown that they could be a central part of the group in 2025.

“They’ve grown,” Brown said. “They got better every week. They’ve been trained and listened to the coaching and I’m just excited to see what they do in the future. But I mean, from the beginning of the spring until now, they’ve been playing better and better and become more confident. So they did a really good job.”

Brown’s performance in recent weeks has also been a pleasant surprise. The Michigan State transfer struggled early in the season and was benched. But due to injuries to OU’s other tackles – Jake Taylor, Jacob Sexton and Michael Tarquin – Brown started the last three games and performed admirably.

“He’s really stepped up,” Nwaiwu said. “We had a few guys go out, and when his time was needed and he was asked, that was a guy I came in with, a guy I’m really close with. He is really reliable; I can call him for anything and he’s always there for me.”

Combine Howland and Ozaeta’s maturation and Brown’s redemption with Nwaiwu’s consistency and Everett’s return from a knee injury in the spring, and it was a perfect storm for the Sooners’ big men. Co-offensive coordinator and interim game manager Joe Jon Finley was pleased with what he saw at the line.

“It’s more of the same,” Finley said. “This group continues to grow. It’s full of young people. A guy like Logan Howland got beat up pretty bad on Twitter after the Ole Miss game. But the next Monday he came back to work with a smile on his face and knew he would grow from it. I said, dude, one day you’re going to look back on this game and say, ‘That was the beginning, but I’m going to play football for a long time.’ And he will. I’m very proud of him for the way he works.

“And that whole group, man, led by Troy Everett in the middle. When Troy came back, it was like a spark plug for this group. He is a great leader. Great energy. Just what this group needed back when things weren’t going quite the way we wanted. I love these guys. I’m very happy for her. They all had big smiles on their faces. I’m so happy for them because they’re trying really hard.”

The group will try to put it all back together Saturday night against LSU. They are not happy with their commitment to Alabama because of all the fighting that preceded the moment at the summit.

“I think given the adversity we’ve faced this year, it kind of helps because we understand that this win doesn’t change everything,” Nwaiwu said. “We still have the pain of the past. Of course you celebrate the win that night, but the next day we were in the meeting room preparing for LSU. You can move forward because you feel the pain of the past, and just because you get a win against a great Alabama team doesn’t mean the job is done.”