There was plenty of change for the Sooners ' offensive corps in the offseason that sparked massive hype for OU's ability to score points.
After just one game, the OU offense appears to be an improved system backed by the additions it made in the transfer portal that helped lift the Sooners to a blowout win.
Oklahoma football had three transfers score a touchdown in its 51-0 win Friday over UTEP inside Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium to lead the Sooners to a season-opening win.
The newly-acquired Sooners got right to work as four of the six skill-position offensive starters were transfers from this offseason. Running back Lloyd Avant , tight end Rocky Beers (co-starter) and wide receiver Trell Harris were acquired via the portal after last year − and scored in their Sooner debut.
Avant, a Colorado State transfer, scored the first touchdown of the season for the Sooners in the first drive of the game with a 1-yard run.
He ended the game with 15 attempts for 79 yards and that score, getting 5.3 yards per carry. A feel-good sign for the Sooners to know there is momentum in the run game entering the season.
Avant didn't start for the Rams last season, but quickly found his way to the starting role for the Sooners after a stellar fall camp.
"I thought Lloyd came out, played his butt off," said OU offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle. "I thought Lloyd's been exactly who he's been since he's shown up here: consistent, hardworking, tough, reliable. Exactly who he's been."
Later in the first quarter, the Sooners scored their third touchdown of the period with the play of the game.
OU quarterback John Mateer found a wide-open tight end Rocky Beers down the field with a deep pass. Beers turned with the ball and leapt over a defender as he stumbled into the end zone.
Beers, also a transfer from Colorado State, is listed as a co-starter with Hansen and found the field a lot in the win. He has displayed his pass-catching ability all camp and is becoming a reliable blocker for the Sooners when they go into 12 or 13-personnel, or maybe even 14-personnel that they ran once in the first quarter.
Beers' emergence, along with the other additions for the tight end room, are boosters for the offense as a whole, allowing for more wrinkles for Arbuckle to play with this year.
"They were really good," Mateer said about the tight ends. "It makes my life a lot easier, makes the running backs life, the O-Line's life a lot easier having those guys that are so versatile and then Rocky hurdling somebody, that's a real weapon. He can do both. He had a great game. But they're all really smart. Being on the field with them, they help me out, and there's a lot of experience out there."
After halftime, highly-anticipated wideout transfer Harris got active for the Sooners with a 48-yard touchdown reception from Mateer to really open up the game.
Harris' touchdown signaled a lot of things. First, it was the end point for most of the starters in the blowout. Second, it was the culmination of what Harris went through in the offseason to make it on the field for the first game.
Harris missed all of spring camp, summer workouts and the first part of fall camp because he was recovering from a cleanup procedure when he arrived in Norman from Virginia .
Even though he missed a lot of time on the field, he still found a way to bond with his teammates and earn the starting role in Week 1.
"This offseason, there was definitely a lot that went on, so I felt blessed just to be able to kind of be back out there and be able to play ball again," Harris said. "To be able to be in the end zone again and be able to play again, I'm just super blessed.
"It's something that I kind of just dreamt about. Being able to get back to this place is definitely rewarding."
