‘He’s Going to Be 230-Plus’: How Redshirt Freshman Jacobi Oliphant Jr. Went from Corner to Linebacker

STILLWATER — Cornerbacks are usually some of the slightest players on a football team, but one of the Cowboys’ just kept growing over the summer.

Jacobi Oliphant Jr. is now listed as a linebacker on Oklahoma State’s roster after coming to OSU as a corner. At 6-foot-4, Oliphant was a jumbo corner coming out of St. Louis University High School in Missouri, but Gundy said he’s now about 225 pounds, which led OSU to moving him closer to the ball.

“We watched him over the summer,” OSU coach Mike Gundy said Monday. “He was getting bigger and bigger, and it was good weight. His body fat’s less than 12%, and he’s still getting up around 225. So you’re not going to get him down to 215 anymore. He’s only going to go up because he’s just a redshirt freshman, I think. So, he’s going to be 230-plus.”

Oliphant was credited with a tackle and a quarterback hurry in the Cowboys’ 27-7 season-opening win against UT-Martin last week. He took a redshirt in 2024, playing in the Texas Tech game where he recorded a tackle.

In 12 snaps, Oliphant had a Pro Football Focus grade of 75.5, which tied for fourth among Cowboy defenders.

Gundy said Oliphant could get some run at nickel moving forward but with him projecting to get up to 230 pounds, Gundy said it’s more likely Oliphant’s future is closer to the ball than it is at corner or safety.

“I don’t know that we expected him to develop that much,” Gundy said, “but he’s going to end up being 230-plus.”

Bryan McCoy Jr. is someone who knows a lot about the linebacker position. After all, McCoy made 138 tackles over three seasons at Akron before transferring to Oklahoma State and taking down 14 ball carriers in his Cowboy debut Thursday.

When asked about seeing Oliphant’s transition from corner to linebacker, here is what McCoy had to say.

“He is one of the smartest and most physical guys that I’ve seen,” McCoy said. “He really tries to, I won’t say try, he works his tail off to be exactly where you want him to be. He is very coachable, he listens, he trusts his teammates and that is all where it comes from.

“You know him playing corner, he just sticks his face in the fan, and that is what it takes to be a linebacker. And everybody kind of questioned if he could do that, for some odd reason. He actually shut it up and stuck his face in the fan, and I was very proud to see that myself, honestly.”