OSU Went Undrafted for the First Time in 12 Years

The three-day slog that is the NFL Draft has come and gone. I’ve spent many a Day 3 Saturday plopped in front of a TV and a laptop, waiting for the final Cowboy or two to be selected.

A couple of years ago, I had to wait all the way to Pick 249 for Chris Carson to be drafted by the Seattle Seahawks. Things worked out pretty well for him. This go around, I hung around for all 255 picks and no OSU alum was chosen.

It’s just the second time in Mike Gundy’s tenure, the other being 2008, that none of his guys got the call that would change their life. While that’s not a fun fact you’ll see highlighted in next year’s media guide, you can place the smallest of asterisks next to that fact because of the coup that Gundy pulled off earlier this spring.

His best recruiting job in years was adding would-be NFL talent to his 2020 roster. If Chuba Hubbard and Tylan Wallace declare, they don’t go in the first two rounds, but I have no doubt that they would have been selected.

I’d rather run it back in September (or January or whenever the football season starts) with a chance for a really good, possibly great OSU team. It’s potentially one of those lightning-in-a-bottle seasons like Gundy had in 2011 and that we expected he’d have in 2017.

The late round picks always seem to be a crap shoot. For every Chris Carson and Tre Flowers — I think Pete Carroll is a closet OSU fan — there are an equal number of Josh Furmans or Marcell Atemans that have a hard enough time staying on an active roster.

Added to that group for 2020 is A.J. Green, Jordan McCray, Marcus Keyes and others. Any of them could stick in the league if given the right situation, and if they have the right mindset and a dash of good luck.

The chasm between a school like LSU (that had 14 players drafted in one year) and OSU (one of nine Power Five schools without a draft pick) is vast. OSU has 15 draft picks in the last seven draft cycles. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a problem. It’s a Big 12 problem and an OSU problem.

The Big 12 came in last among Power 5 schools in draft selections just beating out the American Athletic Conference. Tulsa had two picks to OSU’s zero.

• SEC — 63
• Big Ten — 48
• Pac-12 — 32
• ACC — 27
• Big 12 — 21
• AAC — 17
• Conference USA — 10
• Mountain West — 10
• Independent — 9
• Sun Belt — 7
• FCS — 6
• Division II/III — 3
• MAC — 2

TCU lead the conference with five picks. Oklahoma and Baylor each had four. Texas had three. Texas Tech and West Virginia each had two. Even Kansas had one. Iowa State and Kansas State rounded out the trio of Big 12 schools without a pick. K-State’s streak of 26-straight draft picks had been the longest in league.

But things aren’t quite as dire as the headline first reads. We’re actually closer to the status quo for Oklahoma State in terms of NFL talent. It was an unexpected return by its two most dynamic playmakers left it short on draft capital this spring.

Would I like to see Oklahoma State bring in more NFL talent overall? You betcha. But as far as this one year goes, the lack of a draft pick is more of a formality than a foreboding. I’d gladly trade an uneventful Draft Saturday for a chance at a meaningful November.