Keviyan Huddleston Looking to Build Off Breakout Year at Oklahoma State

STILLWATER — Greg Richmond tried to get Keviyan Huddleston to come to Stillwater out of high school, but Huddleston didn’t want to venture too far from his hometown of Tyler, Texas.

“I was like, ‘Ehh, that’s a little bit too far out of my range,'” Huddleston said Tuesday. “But when I came down here, I like it. I love it.”

Both guys went on different journeys after that high school recruitment. Richmond’s first stint as Oklahoma State’s defensive line coach ended after the 2022 season. He re-emerged at Sam Houston in 2024 under Skyler Cassity and followed Cassity to North Texas, where they’d land Huddleston out of the portal going into last season.

Coming out of Chapel Hill High School in Tyler, Huddleston signed with TCU over offers to Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Texas Tech, SMU, Kansas State, Arizona and others.

He played in three games in two years in Fort Worth, but upon getting with Richmond and Cassity at North Texas, stuff started to click. After playing just six defensive snaps in two seasons at TCU, he played 409 at North Texas last season.

In his first year with the program, Huddleston led the Mean Green with five sacks and 9.5 tackles for loss.

“It’s simple, just do your simple keys,” Huddleston said of Cassity’s defense. “When I was first down there, he was telling me all this stuff, it’s a simple defense. All you gotta do is learn your keys, know when you hold, know when you chase. Once you get that done, then everything’s right.”

Huddleston also got to stretch his legs a bit in the Mean Green’s bowl game against San Diego State when he recovered a fumble and ran it back 46 yards the other way.

“He’s not real flashy in the way he does things, that’s kind of how he was last year, and then all of a sudden he shows up in the stat line every single week,” OSU coach Eric Morris said. “Ends up having a sack here and two or three tackles for loss. Kevi is someone that’s gonna be in the rotation and play a ton of football for us.”

Listed at 6-foot-4, 269 pounds, Huddleston joins a room of defensive ends that has been praised for its depth throughout the offseason.

Last week, Cassity said the Cowboys could rotate 15 deep up front. Huddleston is expected to be one of those ends getting in on the action alongside guys like Jaleel Johnson, James Williams, Malik Charles and others.

“It’s an honor having that competition like that, having those group of guys like that with so much depth,” Huddleston said. “It gets you better mentally and physically.”