Weiberg Talks Pride in 2023-24 Dept. Results, Soccer Opener, and Football Season
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State Athletics Director Chad Weiberg knew he had a willing audience. Weiberg was introduced by Cowboys Sports Properties general manager Kip Racy to speak to the sponsors for this year on the Cowboys Radio Network as they gathered in the North Club of Boone Pickens Stadium on Friday, Aug. 16. The event is a thank you and a preview of what is ahead for this school year with Cowboy athletics. Weiberg couldn’t help but to use the most recent event as a sign of the times for Oklahoma State as well as a continuation of success his school doesn’t always get the appropriate credit for.
“Perhaps you saw. Cowgirls soccer got us off to a great start last night (Thursday),” Weiberg started. “It is the first official match, game of the entire sports calendar for 2024-25. They went up to Lincoln, Neb. and whipped the No. 6-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers 2-0 on their campus. (Applause) They have definitely set the tone for our year and all of our sports.”
Weiberg said he hoped they would continue that success throughout the season and they will try to make it 2-0 as they host Oral Roberts at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 18.
Weiberg bragged in a conservative manner about Oklahoma State’s finish of No. 19 in the 2023-24 Learfield Director’s Cup measuring all of the sports in all of the Division I schools (306).
“That is the best measurement of all the sports and all the success at all of the schools in the country,” Weiberg said. “We finished No. 19 and that is the fourth consecutive year we have finished in the top 25. If you look at the other schools that are with us it is the elite brands in allof college athletics. We believe are an elite brand in college athletics and we belong in that group. The results have sertainly showed that year after year.
“Only one school last year in the Big 12, as we knew it, finished ahead of us and that is the school down south, the University of Texas,” added Weiberg, maybe taking a poke at Oklahoma, who finished No. 24 and five places behind Oklahoma State. They (Texas) have lots of resources and a great athletic department. They finished first, so kudos to them. Then there was no other Big 12 athletic department that finished as high as we did and I think that shows the kind of brand that we have.”
Weiberg said that is the bar and Oklahoma State has established a very high expectation. New Big 12 members like Arizona State (27), Utah (47), Arizona (48), and Colorado (59) will join the other chasers Iowa State (35), BYU (36), Baylor (43), Texas Tech (45), West Virginia (51), Houston (58) Kansas (610 and the rest in challenging Oklahoma State’s overall performance.
Weiberg touched on Cross Country and their national championship last season made it 53 for Oklahoma State. Weiberg believes that with a lot of members back that Dave Smith’s team could repeat as national champions.
There are only five schools with more NCAA team national championships than Oklahoma State.
“The University of Texas is the only other one in what was the Big 12,” Weiberg noted. “They have one or two more and we continue to battle with them. UCLA, USC, Stanford, and California are the others. To put this in perspective there are some Power Four schools that have never won a national championship and these are all brands that you know. I say that not as a knock to them but just to put in in perspective as to how impressive that it is this athletic department has won 53.”
He went right into football and how he and everybody should be looking forward to Cowboy football. The fact that Oklahoma State has sold out a complete season before the first game kicks off. That is a credit to Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy and the sustained success he and his staff and all the players have put into the program. The Oklahoma State program has been in the Big 12 Championship two of the last three seasons and is the only school to do that.
“You are seeing the maturing of a fanbase,” Weiberg said. “I knew it was our fans buying the tickets and filling our place. This year without Oklahoma (Bedlam) and Texas on the schedule we have sold out of every football ticket earlier than it has ever happened before. Our people did that.”
Weiberg is very happy with the way the $55 million Boone Pickens Stadium project has turned out to greet those season ticket holders and other ticket buyers that have sold out the season.
“We don’t have the biggest football stadium in college football,” Weiberg said. “We will probably never have the population cneter where we will need the biggest stadium in the country. Our goal is to have the nicest football stadium in college football in the country. I think we are well on the way there if not there already. It is about providing a great fan experience.”
Winning goes a long way toward that.