Wyatt Young Set to Bring Fire (and a Crowd) to Ranked Matchup Against Houston

Support PFB with a PFB+ membership — $8 a month or $50 for a year.

STILLWATER — Wyatt Young’s high school stadium was about an hour drive from Houston’s TDECU Stadium, but Saturday will be the first time the Cowboy receiver has played in it.

Young was a quarterback at Katy Tompkins High School in the Houston area. He was supposed to have a high school playoff game at TDECU, but it was moved to Rice’s stadium.

“It’ll be awesome,” Young said. “I think I have around 40 people coming to this game, so it’s exciting.”

Young’s fiery on-field attitude was a topic among OSU’s media availability on Tuesday. There aren’t many times where Young gets up from a big catch and doesn’t let someone on the defense know about it. And he’s had a lot of big catches already this season. He leads the Cowboys with 462 receiving yards and 27 catches.

“Really just encouraging them after I make a good play on them,” Young said. “That’s the best I got.”

Young said this isn’t something he adopted when he made the switch from quarterback to receiver, that he’s always played the game with a lot of energy.

As a former Big 12 slot receiver himself, OSU coach Eric Morris said he gets it.

“I was the same way as a player,” Morris said. “I remember having to be reined in at times. We’ve definitely had some conversations. Obviously, you don’t want to take that passion that he plays with. I think our team feeds off of it. At the same time, he’s got to be smart and never hurt this team by getting a penalty at some point, right? And so yeah, I’ve always thought it’s better to have to pull them back a little bit as opposed to push him.

“If you have a little dog, you know, you want him to bite in this sport. But he just has to be smart and realize that you know he never needs to put us in a position where it hurts his team.”

Young said he hasn’t gotten a penalty for any of his fieriness.

It also sounds like some of his teammates can feed off it, with OSU starting right tackle saying it’s infectious.

“I see him out there, I’m talking to the guys, too,” Lepo said. “I think you kind of need that from everyone, especially on the O-line, just being a chippy player. It’s gritty. Seeing other guys do that, it’s great. I love seeing that stuff.”

Even when he’s off the field, you can tell that fire is in there.

Young was asked if he was excited for this game in Houston given it’s stakes. It’s a ranked matchup, and Young is looking for some respect.

“Finally allowing us to hopefully make a statement win,” Young said. “Go out there and compete with the best and hopefully whoop up on the best. Just being able to go out there and show that we are a legit team and finally people will start taking us seriously hopefully. …

“Our motto is misfits. We’ve all been kind of disrespected our whole career, under-recruited or just people don’t think we’re as good as we are. But I think getting a major win under our belt like this, finally people can start putting us higher in the rankings and whatever.”