Oklahoma State Making its Name as Transfer U

I’ve seen the phrase bandied about a bit over the past few months. I don’t know who coined it — maybe Kyle Boone at some point in writing terrifically about all the transfers Oklahoma State has gotten of late.

Maybe somebody else. Whatever the case, think about all the names on the transfer list this year. Victor Salako, Chris Carson, Michael Hunter and Jordan Burton. Think about how impactful they’re going to be.

.@billhaisten just said that Star LB Jordan Burton may be the best player on the entire #OKState football team. Better than Ogbah. Wow.

— Royal John (@Royal_John_OSU) August 7, 2015

Mike Gundy confirmed on Saturday that it has become part of the Oklahoma State DNA, much like Iowa State’s basketball program, to attract and suit up quality transfers.

“Obviously Tyler Patmon did a lot of things for us,” said Gundy. “We realized that if you bring in a player, and I wouldn’t know how you would rate it, let’s just say you were rating him from one to 10 and in somebody’s opinion when Tyler came out he was a five. If he comes into our program and he’s successful and he feels good about himself and the attitude is good, we can make him a seven just from that transformation.”

Kinda scary when Gundy starts doing math at the podium, I have to admit.

“We’re all that way,” continued Gundy. “That’s the way we are about everything we do in life. So he came in and started playing really good, and he was smart and started playing multiple positions, — obviously he’s still in camp with the (Dallas) Cowboys now. He really helped our football team and at that point we realized the importance of experience. We’ve all known that experience is key to a good football team, but now we bring in a young man that’s done two things.”

Two things.

https://twitter.com/sarahcphipps/status/630147956407037952

“One, he’s played a considerable amount of games in his career at another school. Two, he’s already graduated from college. He’s disciplined enough to get to class and graduate and so there’s something to be said about him. So we realized that was important and then we bring (Josh) Furman in, and it was good for us and then we were contacted by (Michael) Hunter and we get contacted by a lot of people now.”

You’re essentially letting other schools develop them before you take them on for one or two years. As if the rest of the FBS is a farm system and you’re getting a couple of guys a year. When you become known for stuff like this, it’s self-perpetuating. Not that other schools don’t do it, but it certainly takes some focus and a vision to make it work.

Now, you aren’t getting the Emmanuel Ogbahs and Kevin Petersons of the world because guys like that rarely transfer. But you can get pieces. Josh Furman was a piece. Tyler Patmon was a piece. Michael Hunter will hopefully be a piece. And if Mike Gundy has shown anything, it’s that he’s capable of throwing together a bunch of semi-discarded pieces and putting together something brilliant.