Jaden Bray Already on Cowboys Campus
STILLWATER – I have to apologize because I had no idea how early some of the enrollees were checking into Oklahoma State this week. When Marshall and I concocted this plan to do a refresh and updated story on the early enrollees for Oklahoma State football our intention was to talk to each one before they stepped on campus where head coach Mike Gundy and the Cowboy Culture would absorb them for a year or until permission was granted for them to do interviews. There are 11 plus checking in and even more when you count new walk-ons. Most of the other stories we’ve done were exclusive because that was exclusive material. This story is more of a reprise, but from a new angle.
As far as the one-year moratorium on media interviews with athletes, at the Cowboy Radio Network we got permission to speak with slot receiver Brennan Presley after his three touchdown performance at the Cheez-It Bowl. That happens sometimes, but most of the time it is a year before a new Cowboy is permitted to represent the program with the media. I agree with the policy. It is important for the players to walk in the program, to experience it before they represent it.
That is another topic and my goal is to hit on Jaden Bray as he checked in to Stillwater on Wednesday with his new roommate John Paul Richardson, Collin Oliver from Edmond Santa Fe, and Nick Martin from Pleasant Grove in Texas.
I remember the first time I interviewed Bray we talked primarily basketball. It was before his junior season and he was coming off basketball and made a decision that maybe his athletic future might be football. Bray told me he was getting some offers from a few schools and some interest in basketball. He said he wanted to try football and see if he could generate some interest there after sitting out of football since middle school.
When I attended Jaden Bray’s signing ceremony, I picked up on some adult guidance that might have alerted Bray to investigate playing football again.
“I saw Jaden for the first time and he probably didn’t know I was in there (gym), but Coach (Rodney) Dindy told me all about him, ‘He goes up and get the ball with the best of them. He’s fast. He’s got great hands. You have to get him out for football,’” relayed Norman head football coach Rocky Martin.
“That’s the way I’ve always been with Coach Dindy and he with me. We’re all about kids playing multiple sports,” Martin added. “If we weren’t then Jaden doesn’t have that opportunity to find out how good he is on the football field and got that scholarship opportunity.”
There is no doubt about this. Because Norman and Stillwater High School played a couple of times in the 2019 season with both a scrimmage and a regular season game, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy there to see his son, Gunnar, play quarterback for the Pioneers saw plenty of Bray catching passes from future OU quarterback and baseball pitcher Cade Horton. You know those stats by now as Bray caught 40 passes for 936-yards and 11 touchdowns. Gundy saw all he needed to see and the Cowboys pursued Bray.
This season the numbers were down because the Tigers didn’t have the same talent at quarterback throwing the football. No problem, Bray had shown what he was capable of. He is still raw in football but his roommate John Paul Richardson is a football “gym rat” and Bray will pick up plenty in the dorm apartment as well as in the football facility.
I don’t think we have to tell you what a 6-3, 190-pound explosive athlete coming in could be capable of in the future. Jaden Bray is going to be fun to watch develop. Thanks to Coach Dindy for sharing.