STILLWATER – According to Pete Nakos and On3, Oklahoma State has picked up a defensive back out of the transfer portal. Jeremiah Piper, who played just one game for Youngstown State last season and has spent time at Western Illinois (pictured above) and started with three seasons at Western Michigan. Piper has received a waiver for another season of eligiblity this fall. He is listed at 5-10, 175 pounds and as a defensive back. Maybe he can play both corner and safety. It would be good to know. Piper becomes the 60th player for OSU out of the portal. In all, including walk-ons from the spring and the new recruiting class, Morris and his staff have added 92 new players. Oklahoma State is over the 105 limit, but they do have a few previous walk-ons who won’t count.
This is a curious situation because coming out of spring football head coach Eric Morris and his staff seemed pleased with the way the team took shape on both sides of the football.
At corner, the Cowboys had LaDainian Fields and Texas Tech transfer Mo Horn starting a lot of the time on defense. Young Kobi Foreman and Kollin Lewis played a lot as well. The safety positions seemed deep, but it was the missing player in talented Quinton Hammonds that was missing. His position coach Jordan Malone told Pokes Report that he had moved from the nickel that he played for North Texas and was one of their top defenders to the boundary safety.
“Quinton can play any of the safety positions, but he can help us out more at boundary safety,” Malone said during spring practice.
The safeties that played in the spring on the top defensive units were good. It was very encouraging to see Cam Epps playing better coming off the ACL injury that had bothered him from two seasons ago. He looked good as new with that tracking interception on the first play of the spring scrimmage.
Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics
Epps (12) congratulated by Cooper Lai (left) and Marrel Davis III (right) after spring interception.
Before transferring to Youngstown State, Piper appeared in 12 games in 2024 for Western Illinois and made one start against Illinois State. He finished with 28 total tackles, He had 12 unassisted tackles, four passes defended, and one interception that came against UT-Martin.
Before landing at Western Illinois, Piper was with Western Michigan for three years. For the Bronchos he played in two games in 2023. He missed the entire season to injury in 2022 after. In his first year at WMU coming out of Southfield High School in the Detroit area, he got on the field in 10 games but without recording any stats.
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Piper breaks up a pass against Pittsburgh, while playing at Western Michigan.
Picking up portal players at this late date is to say the least interesting. Piper has not played a bunch despite being in college football for the better part of five seasons with two almost entirely or entirely lost to injury.
My hope is that Quinton Hammonds will be good to go for the season because he is a definite difference maker on defense.
