Five Players Who Could Make The Leap for Oklahoma State Football in 2019

There will be stories. There will be stories about who’s flourishing under Robert Glass. There will be stories about who had the best spring of his career. There will be stories about who’s going to thrive under Sean Gleeson’s new offense or Year 2 of Jim Knowles’ defense. There will also be truth: And that is that we won’t really know anything until September or October.

And if 2019 is anything like 2018 we might not even know anything by then (or ever).

But of course this is a blog, and what are blogs for if not for speculating about the future six months before that future unfolds? So let’s take a look at five guys I think are poised to make The Leap for OSU in 2019. Think: Chuba Hubbard or Tylan Wallace in 2018.

1. Tanner McCalister: When in doubt ride with talent. When you don’t know where the talent is, look at who played as a freshman. The only true juniors on this team right now are Tylan Wallace and Malcolm Rodriguez. Both played as freshmen and both played huge roles as true sophomores. McCalister is one of four true sophomores (Kolby Peel, Jarrick Bernard and Israel Antwine are the others), and got significantly better as the year went on with his two biggest games coming against OU and Mizzou in the Liberty Bowl.

Why does Jim Knowles like Tanner McCalister's future at safety for #OKState? "You’ve got to have guys that aren’t going to flinch." https://t.co/RDzKCq7noo

— Mark Cooper (@mark_cooperjr) December 28, 2018

Sure he got baptized by Drew Lock in Memphis, but I think he has the most upside of the three sophomore safeties. He also accomplished the least of the three in 2018 which means he has the most room to grow.

2. Jelani Woods: Dustin Ragusa addressed most of this in his Role Play the other day, but I think Jelani could make the biggest leap of anybody on the team. He might be a redshirt-sophomore on the roster, but he’s actually a redshirt-freshman at his new position. He’s surprisingly (and fascinatingly) adept at catching given his size, and Gleeson will use him as much as he can. There seems to be a ceiling on just how much OSU’s Cowboy Backs can and will be used, but I think Jelani will bump up against that in 2019.

3. C.J. Moore: With Tyron gone I think you could argue that Moore has the most raw talent of anybody on this team. I wouldn’t argue it — because Chuba Hubbard is still listed as a player on okstate dot com — but you could. He also probably had more to gain from Robert Glass in this offseason than anyone else on the roster given that he looked like a 2-iron coming into college. If he gets the Justice Hill and Chuba Hubbard offseason transformation, OSU might have itself a new No. 2 WR for 2019.

4. LC Greenwood: This is called Hedging 101 (and if I was really about it I would make the list seven names long and throw Braydon Johnson and Patrick McKaufman in there, too). Again, find the talent and go with it. I’m a little surprised he hasn’t showed out more in the first two years of his college career, but he’s one of just a handful of four-star guys on this roster. Related: Receiver has been obscenely deep in Stillwater over the last two years. There’s going to be some production to backfill, and at 6-3, 212 pounds Greenwood should (should!) at some point be a premium target for Spencer Brown. He’s also still fairly young for a third-year player, as he won’t be 20 until later this summer (C.J. Moore will actually be 20 before Greenwood is).

5. JayVeon Cardwell: We talked to him a little bit before he entered school last year, and he seems as disciplined and straightforward as they come. It could be hard to make The Leap behind A.J. Green, Rodarius Williams and Kemah Siverand, but I think he has a chance to be a tremendous DB for OSU for a long, long time.

“Honestly, it is football,” Cardwell told us about what excited him most about going to college (loves football on your BINGO card).

“I want to learn the system, I want to learn the routines the day as far as pregame, postgame. All of those things. It’s going to be huge for me to know what these guys go through, leading up to game days. As far as breaking down film and all that. It’s always really been interesting to me to see how these guys can play on the field, but also put the time into the film room as well. So I just want to see how that goes.”

That’s not how a lot of high school seniors talk, so I’m excited to see if his physical production matches up.