When in Doubt, Call it Spring Practice and So Far Portal has been Quiet
STILLWATER – It was kind of a business as usual day inside the Oklahoma State football offices in the West End Zone. This was the first business day since the Cowboys lost to Texas 49-21 in the Big 12 Championship Game and since bowl selection Sunday with Oklahoma State being invited to play in the 2023 TaxAct Texas Bowl in Houston on Dec. 27. It was also the first day that the 30-day NCAA football window opened for the transfer portal. I asked one of the football recruiting assistants what he’d heard from the transfer portal?
“Not much.” was his response and that was accurate as only three names appeared in the transfer portal alongside Oklahoma State.
Freshman Ricky Lolohea, who left the team back in fall camp put his name in the portal. The Euless Trinity product and 6-4, 280-pound defensive tackle has been waiting a long time to take this step as he left the team after the first week of fall camp. Lardarius Webb Jr. did not travel to the Big 12 Championship last Friday after telling the coaches his intent to go in the portal. The safety/kick returner from Jones College in Mississippi only played in three games this season and then requested to be red-shirted. Finally, the third name is one that went into the portal last year and I’m guessing never got picked up. Tyrone Webber, an offensive lineman out of New Mexico Military J.C. is in the portal.
Talking to Mike Gundy earlier in the day, he said he had not heard really anything on the portal and had told the recruiting staff to notify him if anything really happened. He said no one had said anything. Obviously, because there was nothing to say. To think this will be it is very naive. There will be names, maybe surprises hit the portal, but not on day one.
In the meeting room, the recruiting staff was busy watching video and surveying players that had gone into the transfer portal from other schools. As of late afternoon the number was nearing 1,000 with 943 players entered.
Oklahoma State has room for six-to-seven portal acquisitions and they have been doing advanced homework on players they anticipated might go into the portal. It is like Gundy and other coaches have said, more like an NFL operation.
Gundy said his staff and team are excited about the TaxAct Texas Bowl and the challenge of playing a 7-5 Texas A&M team that lost to Alabama (20-26), LSU (30-42), Mississippi (35-38), Miami, Fla. (33-48), and Tennessee (13-20).
Gundy admitted the confusing thing is to figure out who will be coaching the Aggies. Interim head coach Elijah Robinson took the Syracuse defensive coordinator job Sunday late. He would appear to be out. Offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino is at Arkansas. It would appear that new head coach hire Mike Elko might be forced to jump in. Of the remaining assistants under Jimbo Fisher defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin or offensive line coach and former Boston College head coach Steve Addazio would be the best candidates.
“I don’t know. I worked some yesterday and so did the staff on the championship game and looking at corrections we need to make moving forward,” Gundy said. “I haven’t got into what we are facing. I don’t know much but I do know some things about Texas A&M’s defense from some of our coaches down the hallway. I’m no sure where they are act with their coaches or if Coach Elko is going to coach them. I think we have to wait and see about a week from now and then get into game plans in all three phases.”
Within his own team there is sifting through the early portal days. As we wrote above, so far, so good for Oklahoma State. That was expected based on the season and the culture of the program with the success of the incoming portal additions this season. It also is worth noting that many Cowboys likely saw how things went for their former teammates and few ended up with better situations.
“First, we’ll find out who is available after portal decisions are made,” Gundy explained. “Then we’ll practice like we do in the spring. We’ll share reps instead of just giving all the reps to the majority of the ones and twos. We’ll work and get our young players an extra 12 practices to get them prepared for spring ball. Wait and find out who is available based on their decisions. I anticipate a large number of our players participating in this bowl game. We should know in the next four or five days.”
Gundy was adamant about that. He and the staff will put in a game plan and the goal is to win the bowl game, but the overall goal is to spend a lot of the practice time helping all players, especially young players expected to help the team next season get work and improve.
“We are excited about playing in the TaxAct Texas Bowl and we’re going to have spring (type) practice for the next three weeks,” Gundy reinterated. “We’ll have a game plan for Texas A&M and try to go win the football game. Things have changed over the last two or three years and instead of us talking about the things directly pertaining to the bowl, we’re talking about who is available, the portal, the draft. We could have players two weeks from now decide not to play in this game I guess, so it is different.”
True, but so far it is looking pretty good. It is certainly a lot better than the opening days of the portal last December. It looked bleak for awhile, but in the end Gundy and his staff turned the portal into a way to enhance the Cowboys’ team and culture.