Oklahoma Football: Meet college football’s premier fullback Dimitri Flowers
Fullbacks are becoming football’s endangered species, but fans shouldn’t sleep on the importance of Oklahoma’s lead blocker Dimitri Flowers.
In 2016 Oklahoma had the third-ranked offense in college football.
Fans will be quick to credit the likes of Baker Mayfield, Dede Westbrook, Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon for the teams success, but one player who has flown under the radar by even some of the most passionate Sooners is Dimitri Flowers.
Dimitri, a three-star prospect from San Antonio, Texas, came to Norman as an after thought of the 2014 recruiting class, ranked the 24th of 28 prospects, but has become a consistent contributor for the Sooners.
Flowers only received four scholarship offers coming out of high school, not uncommon for a fullback these days, and ultimately committing to Oklahoma to serve as the heir apparent for exiting fullback Trey Millard.
More from Oklahoma Sooners
- Ranking the top 15 college football starting quarterbacks for 2023
- One of these 4 teams will win the Big 12 football title in 2023
- Is Oklahoma football the team to beat for 5-star DL David Stone?
- Top 5 commitments from past week in college football recruiting (July 17-23)
- Major commitments for Nebraska, OU, and Tennessee in college football recruiting
In his first three seasons in Norman, Flowers has appeared in all 39 games, with 19 career starts, 18 at fullback, and one at tailback.
In his single career start at RB against the Iowa State Cyclones, Dimitri rushed for 115 yards on 22 carries, the only carries of his career.
Additionally, over his career Flowers has caught 28 passes for 422 yards, and even made 10 tackles as a member of the Oklahoma special teams unit.
While his college production isn’t particularly flashy, it does highlight his versatile Dimitri’s skill-set and how important he can be for the 2017 Oklahoma Sooners.
Lead Blocking
Surprisingly there aren’t a lot of highlight videos of fullbacks setting up blocks, but what was available does highlight Flowers’ ability to change the game from a variety of roles.
On this play Dimitri is lined up offset in a two-back pistol set. After the ball is snapped, Flowers sees an Auburn defender reading the hand-off and preparing to tackle running back Samaje Perine. Dimitri sees the defender unblocked and promptly executes a chip block, effectively taking the bigger, stronger defender out of the play and allowing Perine to gain positive yards on the pay.
While Samaje only ends up running for 15, or so, yards on the play, without Dimitri’s chip block it would have been a negative run.
Oklahoma doesn’t run a lot of typical power I-formation runs, so Flowers’ flexibility to make a smart block in space is essential to his usefulness in a modern offensive scheme.
In-Line Blocking
At 6-foot-2 and 245 pounds, Dimitri Flowers doesn’t have the usual size needed to play the prototypical tight end position, but he does have the flexibility to perform traditional in-line blocking if need be.
On this play Flowers is lined up in an offset, H-back position, and is responsible for opening a hole for for RB Samaje Perine, who is running an outside stretch from the pistol formation.
While the in-line block isn’t incredibly impressive, Dimitri’s presence on this play is the difference between a tackle at the line of scrimmage and his running back making it to the second level.
Flowers’ vision and instincts are part of the reason he’s such a vital piece of the Sooners offense. While some coaches would prefer to utilize a typical, 6-foot-6, 270-pound in-line tight end, Dimitri’s ability to operate as a flex H-back can be incredibly useful for a modern, quick paced college offense.
Ball Carrier
Dimitri Flowers doesn’t get many offensive touches in Oklahoma’s high powered offense, but he does have the ability to be productive when his number is called.
While there is no readily available highlight reels of Flowers’ offensive plays at Oklahoma, this reel from his high school days does show Dimitri’s ability to catch the ball, run the ball and block effectively out of the back field.
Thus far in his career, Dimitri has averaged 15.1 yards receiving per game, and has scored eight touchdowns in three seasons. Though these numbers are incredibly pedestrian for a star player, they do show that Flowers can be a productive player when called upon.
In the one game he did see consistent reps at running back against Iowa State, Flowers was incredibly productive, averaging 5.27 yards per carry on 22 reps.
With the departure of powerback Samaje Perine, who rushed for 4,122 yards in three years in Norman, it is entirely possible that Dimitri Flowers could be a dark horse candidate to take over the bulk of head coach Bob Stoops’ big back reps.
Final Thoughts
After losing star running backs Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon to the NFL draft, having a veteran leader like Flowers on the Sooners roster becomes incredibly important.
Flowers literally led the way to Oklahoma’s No. 16 rushing offense in 2016 and his multi-dimensional skill-set brings a unique chess piece that can impact football games from a variety of different ways.
Next: UCLA Football: Is Josh Rosen a sure-fire franchise quarterback?
While Dimitri Flowers, and really fullbacks in general may never be the focal point of an offense, he’s still an important building block for the Oklahoma Sooners 2017 title hopes, and could eventually carve out a very long and productive niche for himself in the NFL.