Longtime Oklahoma State Fan Caleb Hawkins Eager to Chase Legacy of Great Cowboy RBs

STILLWATER — Growing up, running back Caleb Hawkins had plenty of Oklahoma State shirts and other apparel at his home in Shawnee.

Back then, the Cowboys didn’t want him. Now that they finally do, most of his old stuff no longer fits his 6-foot-2, 200-pound frame. Well, there’s one wrong the program should be able to right.

“So much excitement,” Hawkins said. “I mean, obviously, like I said, I grew up here. This is my dream school. I’ve wanted to go here since I was little. I grew up watching people at Boone Pickens. All the greats, all the wonderful people that have came out of here.”

On Thursday morning, Hawkins spoke as if in-person Cowboy football games were something of a rarity for him, but he did manage to be there for what the sophomore described as a core memory in 2023.

“Absolutely, I stormed the field,” Hawkins said of the final Bedlam win. “I was very excited.”

Both On3 and 247Sports ranked Hawkins as the top running back in the portal after he set the FBS record for touchdowns scored by a freshman with 29, which was also enough to lead the nation in 2025.

Despite the local connection, Hawkins made it sound like OSU sealed the deal in his recruitment when UNT alum and fellow Shawnee native, running backs coach Patrick Cobbs, decided to follow Morris to Stillwater. Considering his entire 7-year coaching career took place at North Texas, the move didn’t seem as surefire as some of the other assistants.

“I wasn’t too worried about everybody else,” Hawkins said of other schools in the portal. “I was more focused on where Coach Cobbs was going because I was set on, in my mind, going with Coach Cobbs and Coach Morris. And I mean, I loved how they (stuck by me) at UNT, so I knew that was the perfect decision.”

The UNT coaching staff certainly made him prove himself last season. He didn’t exceed 10 touches until Sept. 20 at Army, when he touched the ball 15 times for 113 yards and four touchdowns.

“He kind of didn’t see the field until the Army game,” quarterback Drew Mestemaker said. “He got in there with me, and I didn’t think anything of it, and he popped off a long run, broke some tackles and I was like, OK, this kid’s pretty good. I look at the box score at the end of the game, and he had four touchdowns. I felt like it was like that the whole year.”

Hawkins recorded at least 200 total yards in six of the next 10 games while finding the end zone multiple times on seven of those outings.

Fresh off his record-setting season, Hawkins said he didn’t think much about being underrecruited by FBS schools out of high school (North Texas was his only offer) when he put his name in the portal. The sophomore back also insists he wasn’t on some kind of mission to prove the entire nation wrong—he just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity in front of him.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t aspire to prove something. When he steps foot in Boone Pickens Stadium this fall, Hawkins hopes to make a name for himself as the next in a long line of great Cowboys running backs.

“I’m really driven, man, those are big shoes to feel like you said,” Hawkins said of OSU’s history at the position. “I’m excited to try to showcase my skills, to become one of them. I just have to keep working and see where the Lord lets me get to.”