OCLP on MBP w/o USB, direct SSD install?

Trying to do something exceptionally stupid. So i'm on reddit looking for guidance and assistance.

I have a mid-2021 MBP that has been my battle axe for years. i'm almost intent on driving this this into the ground until it won't turn on anymore. with an SSD and 16GB it runs most of what I need just fine. the OS is now the thing holding it back. as some point i got Monterey on it's been fine.

Looking to drag it into something a little more current, but the rub on using OCLP again is that the onboard USB ports are toast. they're dead. no usb drive recognized in them ever. i use a thunderbolt dock with USB (and ethernet and HDMI) for connectivity, but it does not boot from that, so i'm kinda stuck.

Would it be possible to generate an OCLP EFI, then on another mac, do the install to an SSD, drop that EFI onto the drive and boot/complete install from that?

I did a bit of a half assed attempt at this and i got it doing something, but looks like it's crashing out at console on boot.

Any pointers or better ideas, or is it finally time to send old girl out to pasture?

And before someone says it, yeah i tried linux on an SSD dropped in (Ubuntu) and it worked just fine, but that's not what i'm looking for. Thx.