Announcing an Exclusive NIL Deal with Cowboys Linebacker Xavier Benson
STILLWATER – The NIL era is here, and Pokes Report will again participate this upcoming season. This season, starting later this month in July, Oklahoma State linebacker Xavier Benson will have a weekly video journal and a coinciding written story with it each week. He will also join in with our staff during the season for a couple of online chats at Pokes Report. All of that content will be available only to Premium subscribers.
Benson is a first-year player for Mike Gundy’s Cowboys and for new defensive coordinator Derek Mason, but he is one with loads of experience having started 10 games at linebacker as a red-shirt freshman at Texas Tech. Benson then opted out of the 2020 COVID season at Tech and transferred to Tyler Junior College where he was the Defensive Player of the Year in the Southwest Junior College Football Conference. Benson is expected to be a leader and play a lot of football despite being new to the Cowboys.
The 6-2, 225-pound Benson is a smart player, and this Oklahoma State defense needs quick experienced thinking at linebacker. Benson knows his schemes, but he is also a Political Science major in the classroom. He just might be a leader at the state level or in Washington D.C. someday. We’re excited to hear his thoughts on his first season as a Cowboy and his ideas on what is going on both on the field and off.
“Honestly, I knew the first time I met Xavier that he would be one of our picks to carry on this player journal tradition,” Pokes Report publisher Robert Allen explained. “First-year players are interesting, in part because they are not available to the media, and last season center Danny Godlevske was awesome. He was well spoken and was able to convey to fans a lot of interesting situations that came up with the team. Danny also gave fans a perspective on his personality and what it was like for him to become part of the Cowboy culture. The highlight was the win at Texas where Godlevske had all of his family and friends come down from Indiana to see the game and they all celebrated with him.”
When asked about doing this, Benson had a quick answer.
“Yes sir, I’ll do it,” he said. Benson realizes he is in on the cutting edge of the future of college athletics and opportunities for players now with NIL.
Benson has an interesting story with his having started at Texas Tech. He had 57 tackles, 36 unassisted in his red-shirt freshman season. He also had four tackles-for-loss, a sack, and a quarterback hurry. He actually had seven tackles in a loss to the Cowboys in Lubbock. At Tyler J.C. he led the NJCAA in tackles with 120 total.
Benson went to Pleasant Grove High School near Texarkana and played with the older brother of current OSU red-shirt freshman linebacker Nickolas Martin. Benson will be a mentor for Martin and both are looking forward to this year. Their families are good friends back at home.
We have supported Oklahoma State with NIL. Not only did Pokes Report pay Godlevske for his contributions last season. We also paid defensive end Collin Oliver for a meet and greet session with our subscribers after the Spring Finale at Bad Brad’s Barbeque. Now we add Xavier Benson to our staff at Pokes Report.