Tough Blocking or Dynamic Receiving, Oklahoma TE Bauer Sharp Can Do It All

NORMAN — From Southeastern Louisiana to the Southeastern Conference, from playing high school ball in Dothan, AL, to playing a college game in Auburn, AL, from playing quarterback to playing tight end, Oklahoma’s Bauer Sharp is adept at rolling with the situation.

Need an acrobatic third-down catch? No problem. Need a hard-nosed plunge on the goal line? Easy peasy. Need a tough down-block on a 260-pound defensive end?

Bauer Sharp is your guy.

“I trust whatever our team has planned for me in the future for these games,” Sharp said Tuesday after practice. “We’ll get it done for our team for sure.”

Quarterback Jackson Arnold said pretty much the same thing last spring, but with much more effusive praise.

“Yeah, he’s extremely athletic. He’s super physical too,” Arnold said. “Obviously he runs great routes and catches the ball, but he’ll go and move some people in the run game too, which is what I love. He’ll do it all, you know? And of course, like you said, he’s super athletic, and that showed the first week when he was here. We were running routes and you could tell this dude was a little different.”

The 6-foot-4, 247-pound Sharp had but one scholarship offer coming out of Dothan as an unrated quarterback prospect, and it was for the Lions of Southeastern Louisiana, a solid program on the FCS level. He redshirted as a true freshman in 2021, then made the move to tight end the following spring.

That fall, Sharp caught 11 passes for 78 yards and a touchdown, and also doubled as a wildcat quarterback by running the ball 10 times for 83 yards and a score. That included a 55-yard touchdown on a fake punt.

Last year in Hammond, he had an expanded role with 133 rushing yards and five TDs on 25 attempts, and 29 receptions for 288 yards and three scores.

In two seasons, Sharp produced 582 yards from scrimmage, nine touchdowns and averaged 7.76 yards per touch.

Sharp said his role as a tight end at Oklahoma isn’t too dissimilar from what he did at Southeastern Louisiana. His position coach, Joe Jon Finley, also was a high school quarterback who converted to college tight end, and thrived during his four years as a Sooner. Finley knows how to get the football to his big playmakers.

“Whatever’s best for the team and the offense, for sure, to get a win,” Sharp said.

Sharp might indeed find himself catching short-yardage snaps and plowing for first downs. But more often, Finley, the co-offensive coordinator, and Seth Littrell, the OC, will ask Sharp to flex out wide or find a soft spot in the middle of the field and simply try to beat his man.

He seemed to have a knack for it during spring practice, and he’s also impressed his teammates in his first training camp as a Sooner.

“Bauer has played a lot of ball,” Arnold said, “and it shows.”

That doesn’t surprise anyone who watched him play in Hammond.

“Strongest part of Bauer’s game is his athleticism,” Southeastern Louisiana radio broadcaster Mark Willoughby told Sooners On SI last spring. “Fast enough to beat linebackers and safeties in coverage, can split wide, get deep. Has a nose for the goal line in wildcat, speed to break a big play if he reads blocks correctly, power to run through tackles. Some Taysom Hill qualities. … Flashes elite receiving skills, hard-nosed runner with the ball in hand — (his) overall game needs refining but (the) upside is huge.”

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Sharp arrived in Norman in January and has been making plays and making friends ever since.

“It’s going awesome,” Sharp said. “Just going through fall camp, stacking days on days. It’s been different from what I’ve been used to. It has bettered me as a man, as a player. I’m thankful for it.

“I feel like it has slowed down a little bit (since spring ball). Joe Jon has helped me a lot in seeing the defense and what the d-line does and seeing tendencies and what can help me, and just basic fundamentals and blocking and routes and coverage.”

Sharp said the biggest difference is feeling his game get better literally every day.

“Just the competition and the practice, the 1 on 1s,” he said. “Going good on good. Just how good they make me, our defensive ends, and going against them every single day and preparing me for the season.”

Sharp’s athletic ability stands out, but teammates and coaches have also lauded his toughness and scrappy approach to stepping up — not only to FBS, not only to the SEC, but to a traditional powerhouse like Oklahoma, where he appears to be down for duty as at least the co-starter at tight end.

“I continue to say this, that I have a chip on my shoulder in everything that I do, from what I come from,” Sharp said. “I had one offer coming out of high school to play quarterback. So I have a lot to earn, a lot to prove. I’ll continue to say that each and every day.”

He said that junkyard dog mentality “definitely helped me move to tight end,” but it’s also a quality he finds in quarterbacks “all the time.”

While most quarterbacks might shy away from the more physical aspects of the game, Sharp embraced them and now uses them to his advantage.

“That’s one thing I loved at the quarterback position for some reason,” he said. 

Now, he reads defenses from a different perspective.

“Basic fundamentals in everything I do — zone, man, what the tackle is doing. Just basic tight end fundamentals,” he said.

He said prior to spring practice that he felt “raw mentally in the QB room,” but acknowledged that a lot of offensive “concepts started to click for me once I started playing tight end.”

But he’s also not strayed too far from the quarterback position. Literally, he’s become very close to Arnold.

“We’ve always talked. We have a good relationship,” Sharp said. “I moved my locker right beside his in the locker room. Just strategy. Trying to get close to him.”

He said when he and Arnold talk about certain plays, he has developed “a better understanding of what he’s seeing and he knows that I have a better understanding of what he’s seeing too, for sure.”

Arnold ran the football a little last year as a short-yardage runner in the Sooners’ power packages, but it wasn’t very effective. No doubt Arnold would happily cede that role to Sharp, if he wants it.

As long as he doesn’t want to drop back and throw it, Arnold said. That was apparently a thing when Sharp began spring practice in March.

“Whenever we always warm up, he always tries to get a couple throws,” Arnold joked, “and I have to get on him to hand me the ball back.” 

Growing up deep in the heart of SEC country, Sharp said last spring his family was always “die-hard Alabama fans” but will be cheering him on when OU plays the Crimson Tide on Nov. 23. Playing Bama, he said, will feel “surreal.”

It’s the Sept. 28 road game at Auburn, though, he’s anticipating the most.

“That’s going to be a big one I’m looking forward to,” he said. “All the family is going to be there.”