Bill Haisten: Another 3-9 or a 9-3? At OSU, it all hinges on one player
- Mar 22, 2025 Updated Mar 22, 2025
Bill Haisten
Tulsa World Sports Columnist & WriterFourteen years ago, Oklahoma State marketing personnel had it easy.
“Hello. OSU athletic department. Are you interested in football season tickets?”
“Who do you have at quarterback?”
“Brandon Weeden.”
“I’ll take four, please, along with a tailgate spot.”
I imagine it was comparably easy in 2009, after Zac Robinson had two mostly successful Cowboy seasons at the QB position. And easy again before the 2016 and 2017 seasons, when Mason Rudolph was an established star and on his way to becoming the most prolific passer in OSU history.
That’s the value of a proven, winning quarterback. He’ll help sell tickets during the spring and be the biggest reason for victories during the season.
In the wake of the terrible 2024 Cowboy season, I suspect it’s a bit more of a chore to sell football tickets.
“Hello. OSU athletic department. Are you interested in football tickets?”
“Was there an increase in pricing?”
“Yes.”
“Refresh my memory. What was your record last season?”
“We were 3-9 overall and 0-9 in the Big 12.”
“Who do you have at quarterback.”
“Well . . . “
It’s been a rarity during the Mike Gundy head-coaching era – that Oklahoma State would enter a spring-practice period with what seems to be a wide-open competition at quarterback.
One factor does seem to hover above all others, though: Why would OSU have presented a presumably impressive NIL package to Hauss Hejny if the former four-star recruit weren’t the frontrunner for the starting job?
I suspect that Hejny’s NIL package is worth more than the combined value of the NIL packages commanded by other Cowboys QBs: redshirt freshman Maealiuaki Smith, who appeared in four games last season; fourth-year junior Garret Rangel, who got a chance to lead the offense last season but sustained a shoulder injury at BYU; and third-year sophomore Zane Flores, the 2022 Nebraska prep Player of the Year but still without a single snap of OSU game action.
Also: Gundy’s new offensive coordinator is Doug Meacham, who returned to Stillwater after a five-season run on the TCU staff. Last season, the 6-foot, 200-pound Hejny was a first-year freshman on the TCU roster.
Although Meacham’s 2022-24 role was the coaching of Horned Frog inside receivers, he got an everyday look last year at Hejny’s potential.
An intriguing piece in Hejny’s toolbox: track speed. For an Aledo Bearcats squad that was the Texas Class 5A Division I champion, he was a 2,000-yard passer and a 1,000-yard weapon in the run game.
Everyone wants a 6-foot-4 quarterback who has NFL-level arm talent, but you can win a lot of college football games with a 6-foot, 200-pound guy – a crafty, smart quarterback athlete. I’ve been wondering when Oklahoma State would successfully recruit one of those types, and Hejny seems to be exactly that type.
While it does feel that Hejny is on track to become Gundy’s next starting quarterback, it is expected that each of the Cowboy QBs will get meaningful reps during the first few sessions of Oklahoma State’s spring-practice period.
The first of those sessions is scheduled for Tuesday, and the spring period ends not with an actual scrimmage but with an April 19 practice that includes an opportunity for fans to mingle with the players.
This QB battle has to be an equal-opportunity audition because you just never know. Maybe Flores or Rangel or Smith is ready to make a striking jump in performance.
It can happen, like it happened for Clint Chelf.
When Chelf was an OSU freshman in 2010, I did not envision that he would ever take important snaps. During his senior season in 2013, he was one of the better quarterbacks in the Big 12 and those Cowboys finished with 10 wins.
Over the last three seasons, Oklahoma State quarterbacks had combined totals of 63 touchdown passes against 51 interceptions. Fifty-one interceptions in 39 games. That’s awful. There has to be a pronounced reduction in turnovers.
In 2023, OSU miraculously got a 10-win result from 18-touchdown, 16-interception quarterbacking.
If one or more of Gundy’s current QBs has a special spring, the head coach should announce it to everybody. Be loud and proud about it.
For the sake of ticket sales and so that OSU fans can take some hope into the summer and into the 2025 season, it is immeasurably important for Hejny and/or at least one of his challengers to be really, really good this spring.
