What Traits Oklahoma State’s New Coaching Staff Looks For on the Recruiting Trail

STILLWATER — Oklahoma State cleaned house on its football coaching staff this offseason, bringing in an entirely new set of coaches to help right the ship.

The Cowboys made a big change from a staff perspective going into last season, but before that the staff was fairly consistent for about a decade.

With the new regime under Eric Morris meeting with reporters throughout the spring, I asked most of OSU’s new position coaches what it is they’re looking for when they go out on the recruiting trail as a means to forecast what the Cowboys could look like after a few years when they’ve had a few recruiting cycles to stack talent with.

Here’s what each coach I asked said:

Running backs coach Patrick Cobbs

“I mean, everybody has different traits. So, I want my room to be a lot different. I don’t want it to be the same. Things that translate is what I’m looking for, whether that’s speed, whether that’s agility, catching the ball out of the backfield, being a good blocker. Just the things that fit into this offense that you can build off and that can find them a role. Even playing both ways, being an athlete, making tackles. Playing special teams gets you on the bus. So that’s a good way to start when you’re young.”

Receivers coach Nick Edwards

“The biggest thing is how well you catch the ball. That’s kind of the biggest thing. Then after that it’s athletic ability — mobility, lateral speed and vertical speed. Everything else, if you have that athletic ability, I can teach you the rest. But you need athletic ability and the ability to catch the ball in all different ways.”

Tight ends coach Drew Svoboda

“I would say like the H tight end. We’ve got the U tight end and that’s kind of the guy who’s a cheeseburger away from being an offensive tackle, which it’s good to have him on your roster too. You got the Y tight end, which is a traditional tight end. He’s a big guy. He runs well enough, but he’s kind of your old 1985 tight end. You got your F tight end, who was a receiver not long ago and he’s making the transition. He’s got to decide he wants to do it. That’s the F tight end. And then you got the H. That’s the true hybrid. That’s what we love here. He’s part running back, part fullback, part receiver, part tight end, part offensive tackle, part offensive guard. He can kind of do a little bit of everything. And that true H hybrid tight end is what really flourishes in this offense.”

Offensive line coach Cody Crill

“Gotta have the right mentality. You’ve gotta find people that want to choose violence every day and be physical, they love that part of the game. Other thing is athletic ability, flexibility and then size, you know, and length. But the first two is just being a guy that wants to choose violence and then also understanding how much work this involves, can process and things like that. And then having the athletic traits we’re looking for and then size.”

Linebackers coach Reggie Johnson

“You want that guy that’s 6-2, 6-3, that guy that runs that 4.5 — yes, you want all that good stuff that you saw in the combine from a few weeks ago. But, I think when we’re evaluating young players, yes, you obviously want length, you want speed, but again, there has to be other redeemable qualities in terms of intelligence, instincts. So, there’s a lot of other things other than the physical attributes that go into good football players. Because everybody that you watch on Sunday isn’t that way, right? There’s short guys, There are tall guys, there are fat guys. But again, finding the guys that fit what we do and that are willing to work and compete and just get better.”

Safeties coach Jordan Malone

“Well, we’re looking for guys that, one, first and foremost, have football IQ. Because we put a lot on our safeties in this defense. So, looking for those guys that truly understand what it is that they are doing on their particular team. And we’re looking for guys that play hard. Film doesn’t lie. I can coach you to go do things here and there, but one thing I can’t coach is the effort and the want to to put in. So we’re looking for guys that, when we turn on that film, we know that they’re playing hard.

“When you get to the physical aspect of it, we look for rangy type safeties, guys who can cover some ground because we’re gonna ask them to cover. And then physical guys, guys that have a lot of contact courage that’s not afraid to go mix it up because again, I think that’s the beauty about our defense when you’re playing safety. We’re going to ask our safeties to blitz, we’re gonna ask our safeties to play in the box, we’re going to ask them to cover one on one, we’re going to ask them to cover zero. So, we look for a multitude of things as we hit this road. But like I said, we’re looking for those guys that’s going to come bring very much energy and physicality and effort to the Pokes.”

Corners coach Julian Wilson

“The biggest thing is versatility. Our defense is kind of complex. There are some times where you might have to go into the game at safety. So I want dudes with football IQ, long dudes that can run and high-motor guys and just competitive. That’s the biggest thing. I want dudes to have that dog out there because in this game, you’re going to be one-on-one a lot. You have to be able to hold up one-on-one on the outside.”