How American Airlines May Boost Oklahoma State Recruiting

Oklahoma State may have received an inadvertent benefit from the expansion of American Airlines and their flight service they offer, which went into effect on Tuesday.

So what does that mean for OSU?

The airline will now offer two non-stop jet flights into Stillwater and daily connections to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Which is really, really good considering OSU tends to get a majority of their recruits from the Texas and, specifically, the Dallas area, which is a hot zone for OSU.

“Now all those kids in Dallas can fly right into here,” Mike Gundy recently told John Helsley of The Oklahoman. “And kids in Houston can fly to Dallas and come right into here. It’s a big deal for us.”

The negative end of once not having that luxury, is that recruits were forced to either make the four-plus hour drive to Stillwater, or fly into Tulsa/OKC and make an hour or more drive to Stillwater. Accessibility to not only get recruits into town, but also to get current student athletes back home to see families with greater ease should be a big selling point for OSU moving forward.

Five players on the OSU online roster are listed from the Dallas area, with big names like Marcell Ateman and Darrion Daniels as several headliners of that group. But many also come from the greater Dallas surrounding area, and having direct flights from DFW to Stillwater can only increase the Cowboys chances of boosting that number moving forward.