Tyler Guyton quickly embraced his opportunity when he heard he’d start at left tackle in Oklahoma’s season opener against UTEP.
“I feel like I was prepared for it and just attacked it head on,” said Guyton, who transferred to OU from TCU in January. “(Offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh) always told us to make sure that we're ready to have anything happen.”
With projected starting right tackle Wanya Morris out of the opener due to an off-field issue, left tackle Anton Harrison moved into his spot and Guyton earned the nod at Harrison’s position.
Center Andrew Raym was impressed by Guyton’s performance and said with a little more film study, he’ll improve. Left guard McKade Mettauer also offered high praise, calling Guyton one of the most athletic players he has seen.
Guyton, who stands 6-foot-7, 320 pounds, said he came to OU looking for a starting job, and upon first arriving in Norman, he felt pressure to perform, but Harrison, a junior, took him under his wing and became a role model. Meanwhile, strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt helped Guyton calm his nerves and seize his opportunity on Saturday.
“Everybody on the offensive line, they always give me juice … give me that extra oomph I need sometimes to go out there and play,” Guyton said. “Especially Schmidty. Schmidty’s my guy. I feel like I got all of my confidence from Schmidty, honestly, because he believes in me."
Guyton believes OU offensive linemen go to the NFL successfully because of how Schmidt relates to them. He treats them like skill players, which is a perfect mindset for Guyton to maintain, because in a way, he is a skill player.
He wasn’t a starter at TCU, but the Horned Frogs’ coaching staff noticed his athleticism. One day, he jokingly practiced with the tight ends and caught a few passes, so the coaches created a play for him. They ran it against Iowa State on Nov. 26 and he caught a 6-yard touchdown pass.
“I’m gonna ask (offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby) to do that,” Guyton said, hoping for an opportunity with the Sooners.
While Oklahoma coach Brent Venables didn’t promise anything ahead of Saturday’s matchup with Kent State, he continued to rave about Guyton, as he did in fall camp, and said the redshirt sophomore from Manor, Texas, will still “play a big role,” when Morris returns.
“Hopefully, he's fighting every day to become a starter,” Venables said of Guyton. “So that's what my expectation is. But he's had a great attitude. First of all, (he’s) very hungry, incredibly humble, (a) great worker. He's created this opportunity for himself by his body of work every day. That's one of the things I love about him. He’s low maintenance and he wants to be a great player.
“He's made incredible improvement in a very short window. Again, it's not like he's been going to camps his whole life as an offensive lineman, so he's learning on the fly. But he's got a great natural ability to do that at a really high level.”
Goal for Kent State? Finish.
Venables thought the offensive line’s performance against UTEP was solid, but he has a pointed goal for the group against the Golden Flashes.
“If you said ‘...where do you need to improve,’ we gotta finish,” Venables said. “Finish plays better from snap to whistle with a tougher mindset and be a little cleaner in some areas in protection and in the run game both.”
Quarterback Dillon Gabriel was sacked on consecutive possessions in the second quarter, and both drives ended in punts. The second sack came against redshirt sophomore Aaryn Parks, who briefly replaced Guyton.
Bedenbaugh also swapped Mettauer for sixth-year senior Robert Congel for much of the quarter. Congel’s false start on the second drive backed OU up five yards on third down before the punt.
“We all gotta play better,” Lebby said. “We’re not where we want to be. Up front, we’ve got to be more dominant and finish and be a little more violent than we were on Saturday, and Coach Bedenbaugh will get it done.”
The o-line does have some positives to build off after allowing no quarterback hurries and helping OU rush for 6.8 yards per carry. Morris’ return — Venables said it’ll be “sooner rather than later” — should boost groups depth and cohesiveness significantly. Even so, Venables wants better effort from all the Sooners’ contributing linemen to make Lebby’s offense roll.
“I think there's more to be had,” he said. “Whether you give the quarterback a little more time and keep them cleaner, or again, you're finishing guys off on that second, that third level where you give an opportunity to create more big plays.”
Redshirt junior offensive lineman McKade Mettauer during the spring game on Apr. 23.
No sweat
Norman temperatures sat in the 90s when the UTEP contest kicked off, and they’re forecasted to rest in the high 80s when the Kent State matchup begins.
OU beat the heat in the opener, with defensive coordinator Ted Roof describing his unit’s temperature tolerance as “competitive stamina.”
The mental toughness Schmidt has instilled is also important for the o-line, especially when running Lebby’s speedy offense as the sun beats down.
“Your body does have the ability to do it, you just don't know it,” Mettauer said. “If you're weak minded, then you are not going to push your body to that limit. There were times where I had to tell myself, like, ‘we're gonna score, we just kind of gotta keep going,’ and that sort of thing. Even though my body was telling me, like, ‘you are not gonna make it,’ I still had to go pull and go block the defensive end.”
Kent State will be slightly acclimated to sunny Oklahoma after spending this week practicing at Union High School in Tulsa, but the Sooners still have the leg up after their offseason workouts with Schmidt.
“The training that we did over the summer helped us,” Mettauer said. “And you could see on the other team’s face that it was getting to them more than us because we've been doing it all the time.”
