This will come as a great shock to those on the left but when you release mass numbers of criminals from prison back into the population crime rates will rise. Could one of you leftist inform Nancy Pelosi, she has no idea why crime is rising.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) this month introduced the Stop Corporate Capture Act, which, among other things, would codify a legal doctrine known as "Chevron deference" that requires judges to defer to federal regulators' interpretation of the laws they are charged with carrying out.

if yttv loses espn and disney, what is the next best option? hulu, fubo, ????

This is a great talk.

​

Legendary Texas barbecue pitmaster John Mueller dies at 52​

John Mueller, the legendary barbecue maverick and scion of one of Texas’ great barbecue families, died this week at his home in Frisco. He was 52. Mueller's family did not disclose the cause of death but attributed it to a "medical issue."

Mueller grew up working for his father, the late Bobby Mueller, at family patriarch Louie Mueller’s barbecue restaurant in Taylor, busing tables from the age of 8, according to his sister and La Barbecue owner, LeAnn Mueller, and eventually learning how to smoke and slice meat at his father’s side.

The barbecue master, who attended Texas Tech University before permanently getting into the business that made his family a household name in Central Texas, opened his first Austin restaurant, John Mueller BBQ, on Manor Road in 2001.

More:Kevin Williamson, Ranch 616 owner and creator of 'Ranch Water,' dies at 59

Mueller built his reputation on sturdy but supple brisket cooked hot and fast, gargantuan beef ribs with a soft side that belied their imposing stature, and a mercurial personality that often burned with the same intensity as his off-set smoker.

Franklin Barbecue owner Aaron Franklin worked briefly for Mueller in 2006, cutting onions and helping with other prep work, and says the Taylor native had a talent that could not be taught.

“He spent all those years hanging out in Taylor learning from his dad. The guy really just had such a natural gift for cooking barbecue,” Franklin said. “I’d be surprised if there was anyone else in the world who has cooked more briskets than that guy.”

Barbecue was in Mueller’s blood, according to Franklin, who said Mueller had an innate feel for making exceptional briskets and always did things his own way, even if it seemed like the hard way.

“I feel like he probably had to think about it less than the rest of us,” Franklin said. “He went hotter and faster than almost anyone. He really did everything by feel. I doubt that guy ever owned a thermometer.”

Dai Due chef-owner Jesse Griffiths moved to Manor Road from Denton a couple of years before Mueller opened his restaurant down the street, and the then-line cook at Vespaio became a devoted customer. Griffiths said he’d never eaten barbecue that he’d even enjoyed, but Mueller’s cooking opened his eyes to the possibility of what barbecue could be.

“I went down there and got some one day, and I will never forget how good it was. I would think, ‘Oh, this is the potential barbecue has!’ I still think about it years later," Griffiths said. "And you see where we’re at now. I think he really defined barbecue in this region. He set the crusty beef bark standard. He really defined it. He kind of kickstarted it all. He’s a legend. He deserves recognition.”

Griffiths said that while Mueller might have boasted an almost comically cantankerous reputation, the son of Taylor always sought Griffiths out at events or when he would come to one of his barbecue joints and treated him with a kindness that stood in warm contrast to his sometimes icy hot public-facing demeanor.

“He was an artist, and a lot of time our artists suffer,” Griffiths said.

Mueller would play up the caricature of “the dark prince of Texas barbecue,” a moniker bestowed on him by Texas Monthly, later in life, blending barbs with banter that made him an unpredictable if entertaining presence at his businesses.

But despite his love for giving people grief and straddling the line between famous and infamous, Mueller at his heart was a classic Central Texas barbecue man who took the lessons from his father and then burned his own path through the barbecue scene.

“John learned from dad. It was John’s heart that went into everything. He loved doing it. He had a talent,” said LeAnn Mueller, who confirmed her brother’s death, which was first reported by Daniel Vaughn of Texas Monthly. “He was really hot and fast. I think what made John’s barbecue so good is that he learned from Bobby. And he loved Grandpa more than anything.”

Of the lessons he learned from his father, Mueller told the American-Statesman in 2012, was, "You did what you were supposed to do, when you were supposed to do it, and you did it well."

More:Remembering Jeffrey Weinberger, who helped change the course of Austin dining

Mueller left Austin for several years after closing his Manor Road restaurant in 2006, and after several dark years of wandering, by his own account, returned in fine form in 2011 to open his J. Mueller BBQ trailer on South First Street.

John Lewis worked briefly for Mueller at his South First trailer before going to serve as pit boss at La Barbecue. Lewis, who now runs the lauded Lewis Barbecue in Charleston, S.C., said that despite his reputation as an ornery cuss, Mueller could be an affable guy who loved to share a laugh.

“He was a really, really kind guy. He had a huge heart, and I didn’t really get to know that until we worked side by side,” Lewis said. “He would act really tough but the next second he is goofing on you. He had a great sense of humor.”

The trailer served some of the best barbecue in the state and put the barbecue world on notice that the irascible Mueller was back on top of his game. His work at the trailer helped usher in a new era in Austin barbecue, as lovers of smoked meats started realizing they didn’t need to wander from the state capital to find excellent barbecue.

Mueller's work even drew the attention of culinary raconteur-journalist Anthony Bourdain, who stopped by J. Mueller BBQ in 2012 while filming an episode of his "No Reservations" TV program and unofficially anointed Mueller.

But Mueller would always be a bit of a moving target. The run on South First Street ended after a couple of years, and Mueller decamped for East Austin, where he ran the John Mueller Meat Co. Mueller bounced around over the last half-dozen years or so, with brief stints at Black Box Barbecue in Georgetown, Granger City Brewing in Granger and the Granary in Jarrell.

The final chapter of Patricia and Bobby Mueller’s eldest child took the barbecue master to the Dallas-Fort Worth area earlier this year, where he worked over the last six months for Hutchins Barbeque, a member of Texas Monthly’s august Top 50. LeAnn Mueller said she thought her older brother had found his footing and was shocked to learn of his death.

“I think the older he got, the more he mellowed out. This was really supposed to be his swan song. They brought him and took care of him. He was doing really well,” LeAnn Mueller said, adding that her brother “should be remembered the way he wanted to be remembered, as a barbecue legend, and I think he should be respected as that.”

John Mueller also is survived by his sons, Robert, Johnson and Andrew Mueller.

Always good to keep tabs on the schools that would finish 2nd in Oklahoma.

Plandemic was being engineered and planned in at the latest 2009- and does everyone see whey they had to ban the person that shed light on their plans? Login to view embedded media

I COULD SH!T
A
BETTER PRESIDENT

The number of children that have died in the US from COVID is under 700 kids but Democrats want to mandate vaccines on every child in the US unless they are illegals. Then consider over 620K abortions were performed in the US in 2018. Seems to me if we were going to mandate something that protected children and benefitted the country we would be better off mandating women take birth control to protect against an unwanted pregnancy. Just seems a little hypocritical of the left to be concerned with children's lives with COVID while supporting slaughtering hundred of thousands of children each year. Just one of the random thoughts that go thru my head occasionally.

I heard on the national news that Cornell suspended all classes and sports due to Covid. Will they miss the NCAA for the second year in a row? Will some transfer at semester?

Tramel's ScissorTales: How Mike Gundy found a different way to build Oklahoma State football​

Berry Tramel
Oklahoman

Mike Gundy calls the new-age college football environment a “fly-by-night operation.”

Well, let’s check Gundy’s word usage. From dictionary.com: “not reliable or responsible, especially in business; untrustworthy; not lasting; brief; impermanent.”

Well, I’d say Gundy completed that pass. He seems spot on in describing a sport in which coaches, schools and players don’t seem to have much stability or loyalty.

“This is the most movement and fly-by-night operation there's ever been in college football, in my opinion,” Gundy said. “I've been in it for 35 years. So, before then, I don’t know.”

The Thursday ScissorTales check out the kickoff of bowl season and wonder when the National Football League will take aim at games on Saturday night throughout the autumn. But we begin with Gundy's new-found way of building a program.

Gundy calls it a fly-by-night operation. I’d call it a pirate ship.

This coach goes there, that coach comes here. That quarterback comes here, this quarterback goes there. Some school switches leagues, and soon almost every conference is realigning. “Dangerous Liaisons” has nothing on the current state of the campus game.

But in Stillwater, the chaos has played into the Cowboys’ hands. Ninth-ranked OSU is preparing to play No. 5 Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl, with a bunch of veteran players, plus Gundy in his 17th season as head coach and 31st overall on the OSU campus.

The Cowboys, with few pro prospects and few blue-chip recruits, seem to have stumbled upon a different way of doing things. Continuity. Consistency. Experience.

Gundy’s program has a top-flight defense made up of a bunch of 22-year-olds who have been around for four and five years. Keep the band together, and soon enough you have a hit song.

“We have as much stability as anybody in the country,” Gundy said. Then he thought of Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, in his 23rd season as the Hawkeye coach. “Maybe other than Iowa, would be my guess, I could be wrong. Am I pretty close to that? Other than that, it's us in stability.”

And OSU has found a winning formula. Recruit good players. Develop them. Nurture them. Make them part of the culture.

The Cowboys are following Proverbs 22:6. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

That’s what OSU has done. Malcolm Rodriguez. Kolby Harvell-Peel. Brock Martin. Jason Taylor II. Devin Harper. Tanner McCallister. Tre Sterling. Tyler Lacy. Brendon Evers.

The Cowboys have a bunch of fourth- and fifth-year players who arrived as pups and laid down roots.

It’s quite an instructive lesson in this week of National Signing Day. With the transfer portal whirling from over use, and the Name/Image/Likeness explosion worrying everyone about the sport’s future, and coaches you can’t trust as far as you can throw their bank account, here’s a high-achieving team put together the old-fashioned way.

Six of OSU’s 17 announced signees on Wednesday are four-star prospects. That’s a high number for the Cowboys. That’s a low number for most of the top-10 crowd.

“Depends on what they’re looking for,” Gundy said of recruiting these days, with the portal and NIL and conference realignment. “You come here, you want to be a part of the team, you want to get an education, you want to be in our culture, want to make friends for life, you want to develop this young man, want to learn how to be a better husband, a better father, contribute to society, you come to school here.


“You want all the other stuff? You don't come here. It's not who we are. That’s OK. No hard feelings. Either way."

It’s not a fail-safe plan. The Cowboys have a batch of promising young players coming up, but there’s no assurance they’ll be ready to step in when the graybeards are gone. The next crowd of OSU veterans might get the NFL itch. An every-other-year rebuild is possible.

But this culture fad that Gundy always is talking about? He might be on to something. It seems like a plan that just might work amid the chaos.

Don’t have the resources for NIL riches, like some schools? Don’t have the Southeastern Conference stamp of approval? Don’t have the deep tradition or geographic recruiting or the national brand?

OK. Here’s another way to win.

“There’s continuity and structure, because I’ve been here 18 years,” Gundy said. “You have what you call consistency. Parents understand that. The recruits understand that.

“Consistency is the most important thing in building a big-time college football program, in my opinion.”

Gundy played at OSU and has coached at his alma mater for 27 years. Since Midwest City High School, Gundy has coached only at Baylor (1996) and Maryland (1997-00). He’s never worked at a blueblood school.

“I’ve never been at some of these schools where, as people say, you wake up on third base and you think you hit a triple,” Gundy said. “I’ve never been there, so I don’t know what it’s like to coach at a school like that.”

But Gundy has coached at a school like OSU, which thanks to great leadership and proud donors now has facilities that stand up to most but will usually be fighting uphill. And Gundy has found a way to succeed.

His staff continuity has been excellent, defensive coordinator Jim Knowles’ departure to Ohio State notwithstanding.

“This is what we do,” Gundy said. “This is who we are. We haven’t really changed. We’ve made adjustments. I’ve been fortunate to have (strength coach) Rob Glass here for 18 years. The majority of our staff is here. They understand the culture.

“We make minor tweaks throughout the years, but overall this is a very structured, disciplined organization that is regimented down to the minute of every day, year round. I mean, that’s the way it is. And we don’t change much and we stay the course and we treat the kids with respect.”

Gundy doesn’t apologize for OSU’s recruiting, but he admits the Cowboys shoot high.

“We’re trying to get four- to five-star players,” Gundy said. “Most of the time we don’t get them. It’s not like we’re not trying to recruit them. And then there’s some four- and five-stars that we don’t want, we don’t think they’re going to fit into our system. Nothing against them. They may go somewhere else and do just fine, but not here.”

Can OSU sustain this way of building a program? This calm amid the chaos?

Too soon to know. But the early returns are promising, with the Cowboys soaring as others fly by night.

…and that’s why it’s called The Fake News Cartel.

Here is the first section of the email that I got that details:

We’re happy to share that we’ve reached a deal with Disney to return their content to YouTube TV while preserving a $64.99/mo. price for our members. We’ve already started to restore access to Disney networks like ESPN and FX, including their live and on-demand content, as well as any recordings that were previously in your Library. We will also be turning on your local ABC stations over the course of the day. Don’t worry, your personal preferences and recommendations will be just as you left them.

As we promised a $15 discount while the Disney content remained off platform, we will still honor a one-time credit for all impacted Base Plan members.

Interesting to see what MSNBC, CNN and rest of the media comes up with as to which Klan group they belong to.

I have 4 tickets for the USC game in Section 116, Row G, Seats 3,4,5 and 6. They were $73 each but I will sell for $50 a piece. Holiday Party interfered. Text me at 405-919-1099 if interested.

The Fickle ‘Science’ of Lockdowns​

Experts foresaw before Covid that the strategy would fail. The authorities embraced it anyway.​

By Phillip W. Magness and Peter C. Earle
Dec. 19, 2021 4:03 pm ET


PHOTO: DAVID KLEIN


‘Follow the science” has been the battle cry of lockdown supporters since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Yet before March 2020, the mainstream scientific community, including the World Health Organization, strongly opposed lockdowns and similar measures against infectious disease.
That judgment came from historical analysis of pandemics and an awareness that societywide restrictions have severe socioeconomic costs and almost entirely speculative benefits. Our pandemic response, premised on lockdowns and closely related “non-pharmaceutical interventions,” or NPIs, represented an unprecedented and unjustified shift in scientific opinion from where it stood a few months before the discovery of Covid-19.
In March 2019 WHO held a conference in Hong Kong to consider NPI measures against pandemic influenza. The WHO team evaluated a quarantine proposal—“home confinement of non-ill contacts of a person with proven or suspected influenza”—less indiscriminate than the Covid lockdowns. They called attention to the paucity of data to support this policy, noting that “most of the currently available evidence on the effectiveness of quarantine on influenza control was drawn from simulation studies, which have a low strength of evidence.” The WHO team declared that large-scale home quarantine was “not recommended because there is no obvious rationale for this measure.”
A September 2019 report from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security reached a similar conclusion: “In the context of a high-impact respiratory pathogen, quarantine may be the least likely NPI to be effective in controlling the spread due to high transmissibility.” This was especially true of a fast-spreading airborne virus, such as the then-undiscovered SARS-CoV-2.

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These studies drew on historical experience. A separate 2006 WHO study concluded that “forced isolation and quarantine are ineffective and impractical,” based on findings from the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. It pointed to the example of Edmonton, Alberta, where “public meetings were banned; schools, churches, colleges, theaters, and other public gathering places were closed; and business hours were restricted without obvious impact on the epidemic.”
Using data from a 1927 analysis of the Spanish flu in the U.S., the study concluded that lockdowns were “not demonstrably effective in urban areas.” Only in isolated rural areas, “where group contacts are less numerous,” did this strategy become theoretically viable, but the hypothesis wasn’t tested. While the study found some benefits from smaller-scale quarantines of patients and their families during the 2003 SARS outbreak, it concluded that a fast-spreading disease, combined with “the presence of mild cases and possibility of transmission without symptoms,” would make these measures “considerably less successful.”

Medical historian John Barry, who wrote the standard account of the 1918 Spanish flu, concurred about the ineffectiveness of lockdowns. “Historical data clearly demonstrate that quarantine does not work unless it is absolutely rigid and complete,” he wrote in 2009, summarizing the results of a study of influenza outbreaks on U.S. Army bases during World War I. Of 120 training camps that experienced outbreaks, 99 imposed on-base quarantines and 21 didn’t. Case rates between the two categories of camps showed “no statistical difference.” “If a military camp cannot be successfully quarantined in wartime,” Mr. Barry concluded, “it is highly unlikely a civilian community can be quarantined during peacetime.”
A Johns Hopkins team reached similar conclusions in 2006: “No historical observations or scientific studies” could be found to support the effectiveness of large-scale quarantine. The scientists concluded that “the negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme . . . that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration.” They rejected the modeling approach for relying too heavily on its own assumptions—circular reasoning that confuses a model’s predictions with observed reality.
Even at the outset of Covid-19, the unwisdom of lockdowns guided mainstream epidemiology. When the Wuhan region of China imposed harsh restrictions on Jan. 23, 2020, Anthony Fauci questioned the move. “That’s something that I don’t think we could possibly do in the United States, I can’t imagine shutting down New York or Los Angeles,” Dr. Fauci told CNN. He likely had the scientific literature in mind when he advised that “historically, when you shut things down, it doesn’t have a major effect.”
What caused the scientific community to abandon its aversion to lockdowns? The empirical evidence didn’t change. Rather, the lockdown strategy originated from the same sources the WHO had heavily deprecated in its 2019 report: speculative and untested epidemiological models.
The most influential model came from Imperial College London. In April 2020, the journal Nature credited the Imperial team led by Neil Ferguson for developing one of the main computer simulations “driving the world’s response to Covid-19.” The New York Times described it as the report that “jarred the U.S. and the U.K. to action.”
After predicting catastrophic casualty rates for an “unmitigated” pandemic, Mr. Ferguson’s model promised to bring Covid-19 under control through increasingly severe NPI policies, leading to event cancellations, school and business closures, and ultimately lockdowns. Mr. Ferguson produced his model by recycling a decades-old influenza model that was noticeably deficient in its scientific assumptions. For one thing, it lacked a means of even estimating viral spread in nursing homes.

The record of Mr. Ferguson’s previous models should have been a warning. In 2001 he predicted that mad cow disease would kill up to 136,000 people in the U.K., and he chastised conservative estimates of up to 10,000. As of 2018 the actual death toll was 178. His other missteps include predicted catastrophes for mad sheep disease, avian flu and swine flu that never panned out.
We evaluated the performance of Imperial’s Covid-19 predictions in 189 different countries at the first anniversary of their publication, March 26, 2021. Not a single country reached the predicted mortality rates of their “unmitigated spread” or even the “mitigation” model—the latter premised on social-distancing measures similar to what many governments enacted. Even Mr. Ferguson’s extreme “suppression” model, which assumed a strict lockdown curtailing public contacts by 75% for over a year, predicted more deaths than occurred in 170 of 189 countries. Imperial predicted up to 42,473 Covid deaths in Sweden under mitigation and 84,777 under uncontrolled spread. The country, which famously refused to lock down, had some 13,400 deaths in the first year.
Despite the failed predictions of these models, the Imperial team rushed a study to print in the journal Nature in June 2020, claiming that lockdowns had already saved 3.1 million lives. It remains the most heavily cited pro-lockdown study in epidemiology, despite its premature claims and its circular reliance on its own model to arrive at this figure.
In reality, lockdown stringency is a poor predictor of Covid-related mortality. Our examination of the 50 U.S. states and 26 countries found no discernible pattern connecting the two—a basic expectation if lockdowns performed as “the science” often insists.
So why did public-health authorities abandon their opposition to lockdowns? Why did they rush to embrace the untested claims of flawed epidemiological modeling? One answer appears in the Johns Hopkins study from 2019: “Some NPIs, such as travel restrictions and quarantine, might be pursued for social or political purposes by political leaders, rather than pursued because of public health evidence.”
Mr. Magness is director of research and Mr. Earle a research faculty member at the American Institute for Economic Research.

Will @OUSOONER67's worthless scum politician or McConnell win this Republican battle?

GOP blows off Trump’s bid to oust McConnell

'He watches over me': How Oklahoma State's Spencer Sanders has bonded with an autistic friend​

Jacob Unruh
Oklahoman

STILLWATER — As Oklahoma State players began their warmups, Stone Evans quietly sat in the stands just behind the end zone beside his father, Stan, with a home-made black, orange and white sign.

Stone locked his eyes on the field waiting for No. 3 to emerge.

“I think that’s Spencer,” he said as Cowboys quarterback Spencer Sanders took the field. Stone’s eyes lit up.

“He watches over me,” Stone said.

On this day two weeks ago, Stone was keeping an eye on Sanders.

It was less than an hour before kickoff in the Big 12 Championship Game, a gut-wrenching 21-16 loss to Baylor highlighted with four interceptions thrown by Sanders. But in the mind of the Evans family, Sanders was already the most victorious person in the stadium.

Stone is autistic. He’s been bullied and overlooked by many. But not by Sanders.

The two have a bond. They lift each other up.



Since Sanders met Stone at Denton Ryan (Texas) High School, they talk multiple times a week — often through social media as Stone prefers — and Sanders has been known to send OSU apparel.

“I think Spencer is like a real popular big brother,” Stan said. “Stone is the quiet one that stands to the side. This popular big brother wants to bring his little brother to the forefront and does so occasionally.”


That’s why Stone and Stan were at the game inside AT&T Stadium that day.

Sanders had run out of his allotted tickets, but he wanted Stone there. It was his first chance to see Sanders play at OSU. So, Sanders purchased two more tickets for the Stones as a surprise.

“At some point in time, I was that kid in the stands,” Sanders said. “I was that kid standing off by myself. So, 20 seconds or 30 or a minute, 5 minutes with somebody could make the world to them.

“But why not? I was given the opportunity to play here and play football. But there’s some extra things I can do. I’m not just restricted to playing football.”

Sanders realized that early.

His father, David, had a big influence. So did his mom, Carrie.

Spencer was always drawn to help others.

“It melts my little heart,” Carrie said. “That’s a good man, that’s a good young boy being brought up to know there’s other people out there that need help. He’s always been there to help them.”

Spencer was quickly there for Stone.

Spencer remembers meeting Stone on the sideline in high school. They were separated by four years, but Spencer also quickly realized that Stan was the Sanders’ family doctor.

Spencer and Stone instantly had the connection.

Stone will never forget the day he truly realized that. It’s the day Denton Ryan’s star quarterback showed up at his tennis match.

Stone was just a freshman and he was being bullied by others about the sport.

Tennis players were sissies or they were just weird, they told Evans.

Spencer was having none of that.

He shut down the bullying. He stayed the majority of the match, even giving Evans a thumbs up. And later he gave Stone a picture of the football team with a message.

“On the picture it said, ‘Stone, you’re doing an awesome job in tennis. Keep up the hard work,’” Stone said from memory. “On the back it said, ‘To Stone, from Spencer.’”

When Spencer left for OSU, he remained in contact with Stone. Spencer sent OSU backpacks and other gear.

And the Evans family became Cowboys fans. OSU shirts are atop their Christmas lists.

Stan graduated from BYU. But a few weeks ago, he went to Frisco to purchase an OSU shirt for the game. By then, he had posted about Sanders’ generosity. The Facebook post went viral.

A Baylor fan noticed Stan buying the shirts and they struck up a conversation. When Stan said he and his son were fans of OSU’s quarterback, the fan realized who Stone was.

The magnitude of the gesture was evident.

So, Stan and his four older children made a sign the night before the game.

The black sign featured an orange OSU brand and Spencer’s No. 3 with “Sanders” written in white cursive. The other side featured a white puzzle piece — a symbol that reflects the complexity of the autism spectrum — with No. 3 in orange and a message.

“Thank you! Spencer” was written in orange.

“When you have an autistic child, you just want them to be treated normal,” Stan said. “Stone didn’t get very many invites to birthday parties or skating parties or stuff that I wish he would have gotten invited to. I understand. We’re OK with it.

“But with Stone now getting invited to the Big 12 championship, that’s better than any birthday party he’s been invited to.”

What holes are left to fill in Oklahoma State football's 2022 recruiting class?​

Scott Wright
Oklahoman

STILLWATER — Even though its 2022 signing list wasn’t very long on Wednesday, Oklahoma State addressed nearly every position group in the class of 17 players.

Only one noticeable void existed: defensive tackle.

OSU signed three defensive ends, but no interior defensive linemen in the class.

That hole in the signing class was highlighted even more on Wednesday, when sophomore tackle Jayden Jernigan entered the transfer portal. Jernigan, a 6-foot-1, 285-pound redshirt sophomore, was a regularly used backup who had 19 tackles, two sacks and five quarterback hurries this season.

A source has told The Oklahoman that Jernigan will stay with the team throughout the Fiesta Bowl game against Notre Dame on Jan. 1 and could potentially remain with the program afterward.

Regardless, in the last few days, OSU coaches have gone to work identifying targets to add to the recruiting class, either through traditional signings or via the transfer portal.

The biggest target — both in terms of being highly regarded as a player and physically massive — is Oregon transfer defensive tackle Jayson Jones.

The 6-foot-6, 320-pound Jones was a four-star recruit coming out of Calera, Alabama, in 2020. He signed with the Ducks but did not participate in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. As a freshman this year he played in all 13 games with 19 tackles and 1.5 sacks.

Coming out of high school, he chose Oregon over Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Michigan, LSU, Florida, Florida State and a slew of others. Since entering the transfer portal earlier this week, Jones has reported offers from a dozen schools, including OSU.

The Cowboys also offered Snow College defensive lineman Seleti Fevaleaki. The 6-foot-3, 266-pound Fevaleaki signed with BYU out of high school in 2017, served a two-year mission, then redshirted in 2019. He played a backup role in 2020 before transferring to Snow last summer.

The Cowboys are waiting to officially find out which seniors off of this year’s team will return as super-seniors next year, taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility granted to players during the COVID year of 2020.

OSU coach Mike Gundy says he expects to have nine super-seniors on next year’s roster, though only one — defensive end Brock Martin — has made a public announcement of his intentions.

The NCAA has not yet announced whether super-senior players will count against the 85-scholarship limit in 2022 and beyond. Super-seniors did not count against roster limits in 2021.

So the Cowboys will have to wait and see what senior defensive tackles Israel Antwine, Brendon Evers and Sione Asi decide to do with their remaining year of eligibility.

Meanwhile, the Cowboys will continue to shop the transfer portal, trying to identify players who could help the program at any position.

OSU’s only other transfer portal loss so far is backup offensive lineman Hunter Anthony, who like Jernigan, is staying with the team through the bowl game.

The Cowboys signed three offensive linemen on Wednesday, including one who could be able to contribute early in New Mexico Military Institute transfer Tyrone Webber.

The 6-foot-4, 290-pound lineman was set to play Friday night in the NJCAA national championship game against Iowa Western in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Webber, who will be a junior next season, is originally from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, becoming the fourth player from a Canadian high school to join the Cowboys in recent years, along with running back Chuba Hubbard, linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga and offensive lineman Shane Richards.

“We’ve had success with Canadian kids,” Gundy said. “(Webber is) mature. Really good base. Uses his hands, uses his feet well, punches.

“Doesn’t cross his feet a lot on tape. Very athletic. We feel like once he gets here and gets with Coach (strength coordinator Rob) Glass for six months, that he’s gonna completely change his body and his strength levels.”

Still, the Cowboys could go to the portal to replace Anthony if they feel they need added depth to provide immediate help. The offensive line loses two starters, center Danny Godlevske and left guard Josh Sills.

Beyond that, OSU will be monitoring the portal, and waiting to see if any other current players decide to leave the program, then adjust their recruiting based on the needs created.

“We don’t know what our numbers are, because we don’t know where we are on the portal,” Gundy said. “If portal guys go out, you can portal guys in. We won’t know that until the first week in January, the second week in January.

“We might have a couple others (leave). If so, then if four go out, four come in. If two go out, two come in. That’s generally gonna take place in the spring or up until about June.”

'My strength is coming downhill': Running back Ollie Gordon sees like an ideal fit at Oklahoma State​

Scott Wright
Oklahoman


STILLWATER — Ollie Gordon watched Oklahoma State running back Jaylen Warren this season and saw a version of himself.

A very different-looking version of himself.

Warren is 5-foot-8 and 215 pounds, while Gordon is 6-foot-2 and 205.

So they’re not built the same, by any stretch of the imagination. Yet their running styles have some commonality.

“My strength is coming downhill and running through defenders and arm tackles,” said Gordon, a senior at Euless (Texas) Trinity High School who plans to sign with Oklahoma State on Wednesday. “I like the way OSU runs everything. Whenever Warren was in, he ran downhill great, and when they subbed their other backs in, they ran downhill great, too.”

Gordon is one of four OSU commitments who are rated as four-star prospects, and one of two who are ranked in the top 150 of Rivals.com’s player ratings. Edmond Santa Fe receiver Talyn Shettron is No. 78 on the list, with Gordon at 143.

Oklahoma State identified him early in the recruiting process and stuck on him. He has been committed since February, and the coaches’ focus on showing their desire to bring him in was a critical factor in the recruiting process.

“They kept in contact with me,” Gordon said. "They talked to me the majority of the week, almost every week after they offered. They didn’t just offer and ghost.”

Gordon was a dominant force for Trinity, rushing for 2,376 yards and 35 touchdowns on 225 carries over 12 games, with averages of 10.6 yards per carry and 198.0 yards per game. He even played some quarterback, completing 14 of 28 passes for 293 yards and three touchdowns.

Despite his superstar status at Trinity, Gordon remains grounded, which makes him a good fit for the culture at OSU.

“Ollie’s a great kid,” said Trinity running backs coach Damian Norris, who has coached Gordon since seventh grade. “He’s very passionate, very humble. He’s got a good heart. He’s an outstanding student and he works hard. He’s a great kid to be around. He’s fun and real enjoyable. You can have fun with him, but he also knows when it’s time to get serious and get after it. He has no ego. Everything about him is great.


“He has a job. He works. He’s great with the younger kids. You wouldn’t think that he has all this stuff going on with him, because he just seems like an ordinary kid playing football.”

When Gordon gets the football in his hands, he’s anything but ordinary.

“He’s got a lot of football intelligence,” Norris said. “He’s very smart, can pick up things. He’s tough and he has great vision. He can see, and does things that a lot of times, we’re like, ‘Wow, OK, didn’t see that coming.’ But he’s able to do it.

“We moved him around a lot to different positions and he’s able to pick it up and figure it out.”

Before he arrives at OSU next summer, Gordon wants to add some weight to his frame. But for now, he’s just focused on the signing his letter of intent on Wednesday.

“I’m really excited,” Gordon said. “I think I’m just ready to start that next journey.”

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