Former 4-Star Recruit Enai White Thankful for First Start, Love from Oklahoma State Fans

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STILLWATER — Lost in the madness of Saturday’s shutout win over Murray State, defensive tackle Enai White, a fifth-year senior, hit a major college milestone when he started the first game of his career.

“Throughout the week, like you kind of know, but you really don’t,” White said. “So like just when I see my name on (the) big screen in warmups I’m like okay, but I was just trying to stay focused and like try to just do my job and stuff, like not get too overwhelmed. But it was my first start. It felt good.”

White is one of a few guys whose role has been increasing since the opener. He played a season-high 38% of snaps against Oregon, which more than doubled his role from the Tulsa loss.

Then against Murray State, White played only 28% of snaps but that’s almost certainly because so many young guys were getting to rotate in given the score.

That start didn’t go unnoticed by his younger brother.

“Man, after the game, my little brother, he don’t miss a game,” White said, flashing a huge grin. “So when he seen me out there the first play, when I got back to my phone after the game, there was just texts. He’s so hyped. He’s going crazy. Got so many videos of me in the game, and just me like going out there every day, making him happy. That’s just, that is my why. That’s what I do for him.”

White grades out as the Cowboys’ seventh-best player overall against the run (73.7), and he’s OSU’s top defensive tackle averaging double-digit snaps. Oklahoma State’s ability to stop West Virginia’s potent running attack could be game-deciding this weekend.

White’s emergence as a starter for Oklahoma State is rather remarkable considering he’s never played more than 90 snaps in a season, a record he’s well on pace to crush this season as he has already played just over half that (46) in only three games.

Secondly, he’s still relatively new to the position.

“I was bobbling from defensive tackle back at Penn State (in 2025),” White said. “I was making that adjustment from D-end, and then when I came here, it was full-time. So I would say like a year-and-a-half. So this is my first full year playing D-tackle. I love it, though.”

247Sports ranked White as the No. 4 edge and the No. 28th overall prospect in the country when he signed with Texas A&M as a four-star prospect in 2022. He suffered a season-ending injury midway through his sophomore season and took a redshirt the following year.

White transferred to Penn State in 2025, where he played eight games for the Nittany Lions. Between that and his experiences with the Aggies, it’s safe to say he’s seen his fair share of bucket-list college football events.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been blessed to experience all those experiences, for sure,” White said. “The white-out definitely was fun against Oregon last year. We went into overtime. That was fun. Actually, Kyle Field, we played Texas the first time, that was a great experience.

“And just being here at Boone Pickens, first game, home game, we get the upset win against Oregon, man, that was unbelievable. I’ve been blessed to be part of all three of those experiences. I just enjoyed every last one of them.”

Although some players might have expressed regret that their role in those games wasn’t larger, that wasn’t the case for White, who just seemed legitimately happy to be here playing for the Cowboys this season.

When discussing the Cowboys victory over the Ducks, White said he’s claustrophobic. It sounds like that came up during the postgame madness, but it also seems like the joy from winning that game and the support from OSU fans more than outweighed any discomfort he felt.

“All the fans all coming to me at one time, I was just crazy,” White said. “I was just jumping with them, I was just hyped. It felt good that we got people that feel that way about football, about us winning a game. We got people that really care, and they really love us. We felt that. It was felt, for sure.”