Scott: Five of My Favorite OSU Sports Moments of 2024

Another trip around the bright orange sun is coming to an end.

A peculiar year, 2024 was in terms of Oklahoma State sports. The year saw coaching changes for the Cowboy wrestling and men’s basketball teams, trophies hoisted from various OSU teams, and a football season the likes an entire generation has never seen. Looking back at the year that was, here are five of my favorite OSU sports moments of 2024.

1. Brennan Presley Sets the All-Time Receptions Record

Following OSU football wasn’t all that fun in 2024, but following Brennan Presley the past five seasons was a blast.

Presley became OSU’s all-time leader in receptions this season, securing the record against TCU in November. He finished his OSU career with 315 — putting a 22-catch gap between himself and Rashaun Woods.

Presley is an all-time Cowboy and an excellent representative for OSU. He proved that with hard work and a positive mindset he could turn into a star player despite being undersized and having little recruiting interest. And while he was proving that, he said and did all the right things, even in this tough season for the Pokes.

In his final year as an OSU player, Presley caught 90 balls for 767 yards and seven touchdowns while running for another 56 yards and a score. And he even threw a touchdown.

2. Bedlam Softball

Kenny Gajewski just continues to accomplish incredible feats with the OSU softball program.

The Cowgirls made their fifth straight WCWS in 2024 but about a month earlier, they went down to Norman and beat OU in two of the three games. It marked the first time OSU had beaten OU twice in the same season since 2010 and was the first time OSU won two games in Norman in a season since 1997.

OU ended up going on to win its fourth straight national title, but with the Bedlam series for now moving to Oklahoma City because OU left for the SEC, OSU might forever have a winning record at the beautiful Love’s Field.

3. Daton Handles Himself Gracefully

The NCAA Wrestling Championships is an electric event.

I went to my second in 2024, heading up to Kansas City to cover what ended up being the final event of the John Smith era of Cowboy Wrestling. There were many awesome moments in it, but the one I look back most fondly on happened off the mat.

Daton Fix finished second for the fourth time in his career — a brutal reality. On top of that, he spent much of the tournament hearing boos from pockets of fans throughout the arena. It had to have sucked to come up short on that big stage again while people were actively cheering against you. But Fix handled himself with so much grace just moments after, meeting with a handful of reporters in the bowels of T-Mobile Center. He had a gnarly gash over his right eye that he could hardly keep open.

“Just praying for them,” Fix responded about being booed. “It’s not a fun life whenever you’re living with a bunch of hate in your heart. I’m a person just like everybody else, and some people need to realize that athletes, they’re people, too. We put a lot on the line every time we step out there. It takes a lot to step out there — a lot of vulnerability. It’s just me out there and there’s thousands of people in the stands. I’m not gonna say that it didn’t affect my performance at all.

“I was just gonna kind of accept that I was villain for the week. Who knows, I might be the villain for a long time by the sound of it. But it is what it is. I’m just grateful that I’m here. I get to wrestle. The sun’s gonna come up tomorrow, and I’m just gonna thank God for it.”

That’s the type of response anyone would want representing their program. It’s the kind of response I would want to have if I was in a similar position in some aspect of my life.

4. OSU Baseball Runs the Gauntlet to Another Big 12 Title

The diamond sports had many Bedlam storylines as the two state schools played their final season in the same conference. In baseball, the Cowboys had the Sooners’ number just about every step of the way — with the biggest of those games coming in Arlington.

The Cowboys went 3-1 against the Sooners in the regular season. Entering the Big 12 Tournament, OU was the 1 seed, though, with OSU being second. The Sooners cruised to the final. The Cowboys took an interesting route.

After beating Texas Tech 7-2 to start things on Wednesday, the Cowboys fell to UCF on Thursday. That forced the Cowboys to win two games on Friday — against Tech and then avenging their loss to the Knights — to force a Bedlam final the next day.

OSU beat OU 9-3 — playing five games in four days to hoist the conference trophy. It marked the fifth conference title under Josh Holliday and was the Cowboys’ third tournament title since 2017.

5. The David Taylor Era Gets Rolling

Outside of following OSU wrestling, I’m not the super familiar with the sport elsewhere in the country.

When OSU hired David Taylor, I had heard the name before but knew little about him. It didn’t take much searching to find out that his hiring was a big, big deal. And thus far, it’s lived up to the billing.

Taylor’s Cowboys are 6-0 in duals heading into the new year, and they haven’t just been winning duals, they’ve been dominating them. OSU is averaging 34.7 team points a dual. For reference, the Cowboys averaged 26.7 team points last season. And it’s not like that squad was some pushover, it went 14-1 and finished 10th in the NCAA Championships.

OSU’s 34-9 win against No. 7 Virginia Tech proved that the Cowboys are capable of making some noise in the early months of 2025. All-Americans aren’t named in December, but OSU will go into the new year with seven wrestlers ranked in the top eight of their respective weight classes.

It’s starting to feel like OSU wrestling is all the way back, and the start to that came in 2024.