Oklahoma State Lands Potential Difference Maker on OL in Experienced Dalton Cooper

STILLWATER – It is rare in life that you get even second chances, but both Dalton Cooper and Oklahoma State are getting a second chance at each other.

Cooper is a product of Prague High School and earned OCA (Coaches) All-State honors on both sides of the ball and played in the 2019 Oklahoma All-State Game on defense. Cooper was also an All-State basketball selection in high school. He was vastly under recruited and wound up at Texas State University playing for an Oklahoma native and former OSU graduate assistant coach in Jake Spavital. Now with the coaching change at Texas State, Cooper entered the NCAA Transfer Portal and Oklahoma State and head coach Mike Gundy wasted no time in establishing contact and bringing Cooper home to play for the Cowboys.

Gundy actually used his home visit with Cooper on Sunday evening after the Cowboys practice earlier in the day the head coach drove to Prague to meet with Cooper and his family.

Pokes Report has learned Cooper will be in Stillwater this week to make his official visit. 

Texas State

Dalton Cooper

The 6-6, 320-pound Cooper has started 36 consecutive games at Texas State and has been honored for his performance in the Sun Belt Conference. After playing one game in his red-shirt freshman season of 2019, Cooper started his streak of starting games in 2020. He earned Freshman All-American honors from The Athletic and was named by the coaches to the All-Sun Belt Conference team as an honorable mention selection. 

In 2021 the coaches named him to the All-Sun Belt team (third team) and Pro Football Focus, the analytics people, named him first-team All-Sun Belt Conference. The top-rated left tackle in the conference based on PFF ratings, Cooper only surrendered three sacks on 450 pass plays and played 814 total snaps (810 at left tackle). In all, he played just under 2,600 snaps for Texas State University.

Cooper was a unanimous preseason All-Sun Belt pick in 2022. 

Cooper, like all NCAA Transfer Portal players, does not sign any paper work other than a financial aid agreement, which binds Oklahoma State to providing academic aid and room and board for the transferring player. Theplayer is not bound to the school until either attending a class or practicing with the program. Oklahoma State hopes to have as many of the transfer players as possible to Arizona on the bowl trip to practice, which the NCAA has now made possible again for mid-year transfers.