Bill Haisten: OSU's perfect counter to a tough schedule – uncommon experience
TILLWATER — There are markers indicating that 2024 could be special, but I’m not hearing much talk about the difficulty of Oklahoma State’s August-September schedule. It’s loaded with challenges.Before the Cowboys roll into October, they will have faced the two-time defending FCS champion South Dakota State Jackrabbits (Aug. 31 in Stillwater), the big-and-fast Arkansas Razorbacks (Sept. 7 in Stillwater), the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (Sept. 14 in Tulsa) and the teams picked to finish 1-2 in the Big 12: preseason favorite Utah (Sept. 21 in Stillwater) and Kansas State (Sept. 28 in Manhattan).
When OSU last visited K-State, the result was shocking — a 48-0 Wildcat victory.
Since 2008, OSU’s Mike Gundy is 52-12 in August-September games. If he is destined to be 57-12, his 20th Cowboy season could be a College Football Playoff season.
Because the schedule is front-loaded with quality opponents, Oklahoma State picked a great year to have what may be the most experienced team in college football.
Gundy and his staff are working with 21 returning starters. This statistic would have been remarkable in any decade, but it’s astounding now that the transfer portal has such a pronounced impact on rosters.
“It’s crazy,” said Alan Bowman, now a seventh-year college football quarterback and a second-year Cowboy. “It’s a testament to the culture that coach Gundy has built. You see so many guys flying into the portal, and even after spring ball. Shoot, in Week 10 of a season, a team might already have 15 guys in the portal.
“We had no starters leave. We had a couple of guys transfer because of playing time. That happens. But when your main crew is coming back — it’s a statement about the culture here.”
During the first month of the 2023 season, those Cowboys scrambled to forge an identity and actually opened the season with a three-quarterback rotation. Bowman didn’t secure the starting role until the fourth game.
“We have a difficult nonconference schedule,” Gundy said during OSU’s Media Day event on Saturday. “Experience is going to help us in this area — to move forward a little quicker than what we have over the last few years.”
On page 7 of the OSU football media guide is a striking sentence: “The 2024 Cowboy offensive line is likely the most experienced line in college football history.”
I have a vivid memory of desperate Cowboy coaching staffs that, because of injuries and a lack of depth, would plug an inexperienced and decidedly unprepared player into the offensive line.
Unless these Cowboys set a world record for big-man injuries, there won’t be that problem this year.
The average age of OSU’s offensive linemen: 23½.
Their combined body of work: 284 major-college games played and 200 starts.
OSU has 23-year-old linemen blocking for Bowman, a 24-year-old quarterback.
By the end of the 2014 season, that Cowboy team had a first-year freshman starting quarterback (Mason Rudolph) playing behind an offensive line that gave up 40 sacks.
After several years of uneven performances up front, Oklahoma State may now have an offensive line that resembles in quality the lines of 2006-12 — when the Cowboys always were among Big 12 leaders in rushing yards and fewest sacks allowed.
OSU was picked to finish third in the Big 12. If the 2024 Cowboy offensive line is at a 2006-12 level, and if Ollie Gordon is healthy and available every weekend as a game-changing running back, this OSU team will win the Big 12 championship.
Before there’s an October-November bid to secure what would be the program’s first conference title since 2011, however, there is the matter of getting past South Dakota State, Arkansas, Tulsa, Utah and K-State.
Seven previous Gundy-coached Cowboy teams arrived at October with a perfect record. It happened in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2020, 2021 and 2022. The 2010 and 2011 Cowboys had more offensive firepower than the 2024 Cowboys, but none of those seven teams had the experience of this team. These are the same guys who last season won Bedlam and finished with 10 wins.
Joe Michalski is a fifth-year senior center and a veteran of 47 games played and 23 starts. The Kansas City, Kansas, native is the most highly regarded of the OSU offensive linemen and ended the 2023 season with quite a distinction: With a total of 1,035, he was on the field for more offensive snaps than any other power-conference player in the nation.
During his Q&A with reporters on Saturday, Michalski discussed the rarity of Oklahoma State’s incredibly experienced roster. O-line teammates Dalton Cooper and Jake Springfield have a combined total of 89 starts. Preston Wilson and Cole Birmingham have a total of 50.
Eventually, Gundy faces an extensive rebuild. This year, though, there is the best-case scenario: veterans in every position group.
“We have something special here — something you don’t see a lot in college football and maybe something you won’t see again for a long time,” Michalski said.
He paused before closing his commentary and this column by saying, “We have to capitalize on all of this.”
