Five Takeaways from Dave Hudson’s Oklahoma State Fan Survey Results

Dave Hudson’s annual Oklahoma State fan survey tells a story of renewed hope entering the 2026-27 school year.

This is the 19th time Dave has conducted this survey but the first with a new football coach. You can find the full survey results here, but here are five takeaways I had.

1. Football Expectations Rebound

Based on Dave’s survey, OSU fans expect this team to win 6.9 games in the regular season, up from last year’s survey-low of 6.4 (man, six wins would’ve been a lot more fun that what we all witnessed).

That’s a nice bounce back, but it’s still the second-fewest amount of wins predicted in the survey’s history (excluding the 10-game 2020 season).

OSU fans have generally been fairly spot on when it comes to these types of predictions. Check out this observation from Dave:

“Over the last 18 seasons, fans participating in the survey have predicted a total of 149.5 regular season wins. The team has actually won 142; a net shortfall of 7.5 games, almost entirely explained by the last two seasons’ historic misses (-5.5 in 2024, -5.4 in 2025: by far the two largest misses in survey history, and the reason we’re doing this whole exercise with a new coach this year). Take out Gundy’s tailspin over the last two years, and the fan base’s 16-year track record is remarkably accurate: predicted 134.6, actual 138; if anything, a little too cautious.”

It should come as no surprise, the game the fans are most confident in is the Cowboys’ contest against FCS Murray State, and the game fans are least confident in is the Week 2 title against Oregon. But some of the in between is of note.

After last year’s embarrassing home loss to the Golden Hurricane, fans give the Cowboys an 83.6% chance of going to Tulsa and winning to start the season.

Aside from Tech, the Big 12 seems like its usual mosh-pit self this season.

OSU fans give the Cowboys above a 50% chance of beating:

Colorado (67.85)
Kansas (66.4%)
UCF (64.6%)
Iowa State (63.9%)
West Virginia (59.1%)

Meaning fans gave the Pokes below a 50% chance of beating:

Arizona State (47.4%)
Kansas State (46.7%)
Houston (45.7%)
Texas Tech (33.7%)

It could come down to home vs. road. Of the four Big 12 games fans give OSU below a 50% chance in, all but that Tech game are played on the road, while the three Big 12 games fans are most confident in are played in Boone Pickens Stadium.

2. Fantasy World NIL Shows Importance of Football

A harsh reality OSU fans felt last season: football makes the world that is an athletic department go around.

Starting last year, Dave gave fans a hypothetical $1 million to be spent funding OSU sports. Last year, an average of $233,066 went to the football program. That was still the most of any sport, but after watching their team go 1-11 last season, that number has jumped nearly $100,000 to $333,046.

That meant the rest of OSU’s sports were down a little from the previous year.

As far as the actual NIL outlook at OSU, it appears as if fans are feeling better about where the athletic department is at.

For the prompt “I feel OSU is well-positioned to compete in the NIL era,” 30.1% of pollsters either disagreed or strongly disagreed, which is down 12.8% from last year. It hasn’t gone full-blown Texas Tech or anything, as 20.1% voted either agree or strongly agree, but a lot more people are at least in the “neutral” camp than last year.

3. Picking a Favorite in a Haystack

This football roster is unlike anything Oklahoma State has ever seen before given all the turnover in Stillwater, which made the favorite players portion of the survey rather intriguing.

It makes sense that quarterback Drew Mestemaker is the favorite offensive player, garnering 42% of the vote, but Caleb Hawkins’ 37% is tied with James Washington (2016) for the highest of any second placer. Wake Forest transfer receiver Chris Barnes came third at 6%, which is among the lowest for third placers. Basically: I know who Mestemaker and Hawkins are, but I’ll need a roster for most everyone else — which is fair!

No one knows how to pick a favorite defender anymore. Jaleel Johnson took first with 19%. That’s the second-lowest percentage a favorite has gotten trailing only last year (Cam Epps at 15%). The average percentage of the vote a first-place selection would get from 2009 to 2024 was 37.8%.

4. OSU Basketball Fans Ready to Be Hurt Again

The Cowboys have made the NCAA Tournament two times in the past 10 years — a brutal reality to be a part of.

But, OSU fans give the Cowboys an 88% chance of making the Big Dance in 2027 — the highest that percentage has been since the Cade Cunningham year (the last time OSU actually made the tournament).

It’s been a steady climb up on that prompt. It was at a survey-low 36% just two years ago before climbing up to 72% last year and now up to 88% in Lutz’s third season.

5. Wrestling School?

There is a lot of Cowboy Wrestling propaganda in these survey results, and given what David Taylor has been doing in Gallagher-Iba Arena, it’s easy to see why.

Starting with the prompt “I would rather OSU win a national championship in ___,” wrestling tied men’s basketball for 9% of the vote. Football has always led this vote, but basketball had always been a solo No. 2.

Meanwhile, for the second straight year, Taylor claimed the top spot of the coaches and administrators ranking with a 4.8 average rating (of five). That 4.8 rating ties Josh Holliday 2016 and Mike Gundy’s 2027 rating for the best anyone has posted.

Then in the “Which OSU program will win the school’s next national championship?” prompt, wrestling took first with 43% ahead of golf (33%) and cross country (22%) — two programs that have recently won national championships.