Sanders Is on All of These Awards’ Watch Lists Because He Is Critical to Pokes’ Success

STILLWATER – Tim Rattay finished his playing career in 2007. The Oklahoma State quarterbacks coach played in 40 NFL games and started 18 of those games primarily with the San Francisco 49ers but he was also with Tampa Bay in 2006 and Tennessee and Arizona in 2007. He completed 432-of-714 passes for 4,853-yards and 31 touchdowns. Rattay is a tall quarterback, but when I asked him about lifting weights in his days at Louisiana Tech and the NFL he preferred to focus on the strength training of his quarterbacks including Spencer Sanders, who attacks the bench press bar like a linebacker.

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Sanders on the bench press this summer.

“He loves to compete and he takes that same mentality to the weight room and the stadiums (runs) like you said,” Rattay answered. “He knows and he understands when he has extra weight that he needs extra weight to handle the season. He looks good right now and he is around 215-pounds. Gunnar (Gundy) and Garrett (Rangel) they do well and attack the weight room. It has been a good summer.”

It’s no secret that anybody banking on Oklahoma State being a strong prospect to make it back to the Big 12 Championship and carry home the hardware from AT&T stadium this season is counting on Sanders to carry the load. He is a fourth-year starting quarterback and while he has had an issue at times with turnovers, Sanders is a playmaker. That Big 12 game a year ago,, he did have four interceptions, but I only found blame with him for one and a half. Those final two drives inside the Baylor five-yard-line resulted in a field goal and the play that was inches short and ended the game. Oklahoma State is not down there either time without Sanders’ clutch playmaking.

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Sanders at Big 12 Media Days.

"I've been in this offense for four years, so I'm pretty comfortable with the playbook,” Sanders said at Big 12 Media Days last week. “When something kind of comes at me from the playbook, I know it very well. The faster I get it knowing that then the faster I could run that, and the faster I can run that, is the faster I can set up the offense. It's about timing with the defense. We can get in a formation and have a play ran within four seconds. That's hard for a defensive coordinator to call plays on that. It creates holes. It creates things that we need."

That kind of knowledge is paying dividends as Sanders truly knows everybody’s task and assignment on every play and adjustments too. The young receivers like Jaden Bray, John Paul Richardson, Bryson and Blaine Green, even veteran Braydon Johnson shaking off rust from a year out might need some help. Sanders can do that and he cand do that quickly.

He is taking his role as a leader, as a true guide for the offense very serious.

“It comes with growth, maturity, and age. It is just part of the deal,” Rattay said of Sanders as the team leader. “I’m sure when he was first starting as a red-shirt freshman it was more about him doing his job and I think he understands now that he has to take more of a leadership in the off season and he has embraced that.”

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Sanders is always thinking and become great at the snape with checks and changes. He can run the offense fast.

“I just want to make those guys as comfortable as possible, because the best they play is also the best that we can produce. But also, it's the best they can play is just (being) themselves, you know, the more comfortable they are,” Sanders says he isn’t looking for the next Tylan Wallace or Tay Martin. “I want them to be the next Jaden Bray or the next Braydon Johnson or Brennan Presley. I want them to be the best them, not somebody else's shoes. The more comfortable I get them to feel, it's just the better that they can play."

It is just another reason that Sanders is so critical to this teams’ success. I’ve said this before, there is a decent chance that he may be back for a fifth starting season in 2023. Oh yeah, that would be exceptional.