What Five OL Signees Means for the Future of OSU’s Offense

It’s official. Josh Henson’s first full class of O-Line commits have put pen to paper and will be Cowboys next fall. No surprises. No last minute scrambling to fill spots. Henson was charged with filling a cupboard that has been closer to empty than full over the last several years, and he’s delivered in his short time on the job.

Oklahoma State signed five linemen, essentially an entire rotation of big men for the future, as part of the 22 signees that turned in their letters of intent before 9 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Here’s a quick look.

“We feel good about them,” said Mike Gundy of his OL signees. “We think that they’ll develop. Again, you can’t ask a whole lot of them in the first two years. Sometimes they can be a little more of an impact after the first year, [that’s] pretty rare.

“But when you take a number of guys that are averaging about 305 pounds across the front, you figure that in two years they’re going to average about 320.”

This past February, Mike Gundy wasn’t bragging about long and rangy 300-pounders. He was scrambling to simply find linemen with a pulse. The Cowboys added just one OL prospect, junior college transfer Arlington Hambright who it appears took a redshirt this season. All three high school pledges flipped to other schools before National Signing Day and former OL coach Greg Adkins was unable to replace them. It’s the main reason he was dismissed and Henson, an offensive analyst for OSU at the time, was a natural choice to replace him.

But the offensive line woes didn’t start with Adkins three years ago or even Bob Connelly, his predecessor. When OSU mainstay Joe Wickline bolted in 2014 to join Charlie Strong’s staff at Texas, he left a bare cupboard that essentially set the program back a season or more.

Freshmen and out-of-position players were shuffled up and down the line in 2014 and the offense suffered — as did Daxx Garman. Since then, Gundy has been bent on turning OSU’s biggest weakness into a strength, and it appears that former Cowboy and decorated ace recruiter Josh Henson is the answer.

He’s an accomplished coach with experience at many positions including a stint as Missouri’s offensive coordinator. Most importantly, he could bring consistency to an office that has had none over the last five years, if he sticks around. Zach Crabtree has had four different offensive line coaches during his college career.

“It will be nice to build that back up,” Gundy said of his OL depth. “And quite honestly, with this class, with what we have now, this is the first time that we’ve got our numbers back in the offensive line in about six years.

“That’s how long it takes to build it back up. So it’s difficult to let that happen but we’ve finally got it built back up.”

That process of restocking the cupboard may be a work in progress, but signing an entire hockey line rotation for next year’s scout team is a huge start.

“It’s what you need in a class,” said Gundy. “You need to have four or five of those big guys. Put them in the culture. Let Rob Glass handle them for a couple years, change their bodies and then they’ll be ready to play after they’ve been in the program a couple of years.”

Whether or not any of Wednesday’s OL signees see the field in 2018, the Cowboys are investing in the future at one of its least-flashy, but most-crucial spots.

Oklahoma State is about to say goodbye to its most accomplished quarterback ever whose career started behind an offensive line in shambles. Imagine what Mason Rudolph could have done playing behind a Josh Henson-led group for four years. Imagine what Spencer Sanders might be able to do.