Don't Forget Like I Did, Leslie O'Neal Is Going Into the College Football HoF

STILLWATER – It has been easy to lose track of time and events the past 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We did have a football season and this past March, some madness, but so many things were postponed during the battle with the coronavirus.

Normalcy is returning and I’m ashamed to say that when former Oklahoma State tailback great (and fullback) Terry Miller was on the latest College Football Hall of Fame ballot from the National Football Foundation that I forget how many Oklahoma State connections were in the Collegiate Hall. I knew Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas, and Bob Fenimore; but I had lost track if anybody else, and especially Leslie O’Neal, were in the new Atlanta, Georgia home of the College Football Hall of Fame. O’Neal had been on the ballot a couple of times recently.

How could I forget that one of Oklahoma State’s two-time All-Americans, a consensus in 1984 and a unanimous in 1985, had been elected to the Hall right before the World stopped congregating to honor such heroes. O’Neal will finally go in at the 63rd NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 7 at the ARIA Resort & Casino Las Vegas.

Oklahoma State Athletics

Big shoulder pads and skinny legs.

I remember Leslie O’Neal well as he came to Stillwater from Arkansas where the skinny red-headed and freckled O’Neal didn’t look like much. You looked at him and certainly had him pegged as a project. In fact, O’Neal was recruited as a tight end, but after a year of coordinating offense as a favor to head coach and future College Hall of Fame inductee Jimmy Johnson, Jones went back to defense. He wanted O’Neal with him as a defensive end. Jones, an Arkansas native himself, liked players from his home state and he liked O’Neal. He saw something in him. Would it surprise you in a “Paul Harvey” kind of “rest of the story” type note that Jones and O’Neal both went to high school at Little Rock Hall High School.

O’Neal was making some strides in the weight room and his weight had come up some. He was playing and making some plays, primarily because of his first step and his quickness off the ball. This was 1983 and on Oct. 8 Nebraska came in with an unbeaten team and the big offensive line loaded with Outland Award candidates and a backfield with Turner Gill at quarterback, Mike Rozier at I-back, Tom Rathman at fullback, and Irving Fryar at the wing. This was as prolific an offense as Tom Osborne ever had. Both teams were unbeaten, but ABC didn’t bring their national cameras to town. Local CBS affiliate KWTV televised the game that ABC ended up taking constant updates from and airing them.

Nebraska struggled offensively with O’Neal and his defensive teammates playing toe-to-toe with and speed for speed with the Huskers. Nebraska had averaged 57.8-points a game in their first five wins over No. 4-Penn State, Wyoming, Minnesota, UCLA, and Syracuse.

“They come into Stillwater, we’re both undefeated, they’re as good an offensive team as we’ve ever seen,” Jones told Matt Fortuna who did a profile of O’Neal for the National Football Foundation, “We were pretty good but ended up being better than we thought we would be. They had an injury, and Leslie was matched up on a young offensive lineman and he wore him completely out. We lost 14-10, but that was the Big Red Machine, that was a great team.”

As Jones said, Nebraska escaped Lewis Field and O’Neal that day 14-10.

Oklahoma State Athletics

O’Neal terrorized quarterbacks.

O’Neal had 20 tackles against the Huskers in that game and that signaled the start of a dominant career on the defensive line for the onetime skinny kid that grew into a very athletic 290-pounds. O’Neal would up playing both defensive end and defensive tackle for the Cowboys.

He finished his career with 393 tackles and led the Pokes to three-straight bowl berths, two Gator Bowls. O’Neal owns the school record for career sacks with 34 and his career TFL (47) rank second. He is the first pure defensive player from Oklahoma State to go into the Hall of Fame. Bob Fenimore played both ways and finished with 18 career interceptions, still the Oklahoma State career mark, however, Fenimore was better known for his offensive exploits.

O’Neal holds another important trait from his days at Oklahoma State. O’Neal got better every season. In a sport where players often have slumps and frequently regress, O’Neal got better and he did that in the NFL too until he started seeing some abilities diminish with age.

“Leslie comes on and finishes out that year as All Big-Eight and we beat a good Baylor team in the Bluebonnet Bowl,” Jones told Fortuna. “(Head coach) Jimmy Johnson leaves, I become the head coach in ’84 and have mostly the same unit back and we get as high as No. 2 in the country going into our last game at Norman.

Oklahoma State lost that No. 2 vs. No. 3 showdown game to Oklahoma 24-14, but went on to beat No. 7 South Carolina in the first of two Gator Bowls 21-14. The Cowboys finished No. 5 in the UPI Poll and with a 10-2 record. O’Neal’s 16 sacks that season remain a single-season Oklahoma State record.

The team was 8-4 the following season and leaned on the defense and O’Neal. He was a unanimous All-American. O’Neal was quiet, not much of a talker. In fact, the first year he went on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot I tried to get him to come on my radio show and told him I would set him up for others to get the word out to vote for Leslie O’Neal. He wasn’t going to do it.

Just like in college, it was hard to get him talking.

Oklahoma State Athletics

O’Neal had really matured by the time he was a senior in 1985.

“The sacks are where you get the notoriety, but to be honest I loved playing the run,” O’Neal told The Oklahoman in 2014. “You can go out and just play the run and make 10 tackles. I loved getting the passer, but I always prided myself on being able to play the pass and the run, too. Play every down. It’s kind of a lost art.”

In the NFL, O’Neal was a 14-season player for primarily San Diego and Kansas City. He made the Pro Bowl six times, and he is tied with Lawrence Taylor for 15th on the league’s all-time sacks list with 132.5. There are many that believe O’Neal has been snubbed by the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Jones, who now does sports talk radio in Tulsa, still feels really strong about O’Neal and his contributions.

“He was not a man of a lot of words but when he spoke, they listened,” Jones told Matt Fortuna of O’Neal’s impact on the locker room. “He was very, very well-respected. He was a great leader by example. He was a hard worker in the offseason. He took good care of himself. He was very highly regarded internally.”

He still is, only now he is a Hall-of-Famer. That also means he is on the short list for the newly established Boone Pickens Stadium Ring of Honor.  I swear I’ll remember O’Neals in the Hall of Fame from now on.