Oklahoma

CU Buffs opponent preview: Experienced Oklahoma State takes aim at Big 12 title

Published

2 years ago

July 7, 2024

CU Buffs opponent preview: Experienced Oklahoma State takes aim at Big 12 title

At a time in college sports where player movement is more prevalent than ever, Oklahoma State’s football team might be an anomaly.

Head coach Mike Gundy comes into his 20th season with the Cowboys and they are loaded with experience and returning starters.

With 10 starters back on offense and 10 on defense, Oklahoma State could be the best team in the Big 12 and one of the top teams in the country.

This summer, BuffZone is previewing each of Colorado’s opponents for the 2024 season and in this final installment we look at Oklahoma State, which will visit Boulder for the season finale on Nov. 29.

Gundy, a former OSU quarterback, went 4-7 in his first season leading the Cowboys (2005), but has taken them to 18 consecutive bowl games since then. It’s the sixth-longest active bowl streak, with only Georgia, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Alabama and Clemson enjoying longer streaks.

This season, the Cowboys return almost everybody from a team that went 10-4 last year and played in the Big 12 title game.

“It was really fun this spring to move quickly through terminology from a football standpoint,” Gundy said recently in an interview with ESPN. “Last year we had 28 new players.”

One of those new players last year was quarterback Alan Bowman, who transferred in from Michigan. Bowman wound up as the starter, but not until after the Cowboys used three different quarterbacks early.

The Cowboys averaged just 29.6 points per game last year, the first time they finished under 30 since 2014. Gundy feels that will improve with Bowman back and firmly entrenched as the starter.

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy reacts with fans when leaving the field after an NCAA college football game against BYU Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, in Stillwater, Okla. (AP Photo/Mitch Alcala)

“We put a lot on our quarterbacks,” he said. “We ask them to put us in the best situation. We’ll have more availability with that this fall than we did last year because we were rotating guys through. Bowman has come though and had a terrific spring for us. He now understands our system. I think he’s very comfortable in communication and understanding where we want to attack the defense.”

It certainly helps that Bowman can hand off to last year’s Big 12 offensive player of the year, running back Ollie Gordon II, and has the entire offensive line back.

The receiver room is stacked, too, with Brennan Presley (101 catches last year) leading the way. The Cowboys should also get a boost from De’Zhaun Stribling. A transfer from Washington State last year, he missed the last 11 games with an injury. In two seasons at WSU, he caught 95 passes for 1,073 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Defensively last year the Cowboys were 10th in the Big 12 in points allowed (28.6) and last in yards allowed (441.8). Ten players with starting experience are back, though, including a pair of linebackers – Nick Martin and Collins Oliver – who are among the best in the Big 12.

OSU will lean on its defensive line, led by nose tackle Justin Kirkland, to take some steps forward in order for the defense to improve as a whole.

Under Gundy, the Cowboys have been a virtual lock to post a winning season and get to a bowl. But, with a boatload of experience on both sides of the ball, the Cowboys are gunning for much more than just getting to the postseason. A Big 12 title and spot in the expanded college football playoff are realistic goals.

“We all know that we have the potential to be really good, so we just got to put the work in, come together as one and we’re going to be really good,” Bowman said during spring practices.

“Obviously we’re coming back to do one thing and that’s to win a Big 12 championship and to make the College Football Playoff. I think that’s the goal that everybody has, to take what we learned last year and use everything that we’ve done to be able to launch us forward into (this season).”

Oklahoma State Cowboys

Head coach: Mike Gundy, 20th season (166-79)

2023 season: 10-4, 7-2 Big 12; Beat Texas A&M in Texas Bowl

Series with CU: Buffs lead 26-20-1

The Game

Who: Oklahoma State at Colorado Buffaloes

When: Friday, Nov. 29, 10 a.m. MT (ABC)

Where: Folsom Field in Boulder

Oklahoma State quarterback Alan Bowman looks to pass the ball against Texas A&M during the first half of the Texas Bowl NCAA college football game Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)

5 Guys to Watch

QB Alan Bowman: A transfer from Michigan a year ago, he started 13 games and completed 60.7% of his passes for 3,460 yards, 15 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He also ran for two touchdowns. In his collegiate career, he has thrown for 8,789 yards and 49 touchdowns.

RB Ollie Gordon II: The offensive player of the year in the Big 12 in 2023, he led the country with 1,732 rushing yards and was second in rushing touchdowns (21). He was also a big part of the passing game, finishing third on the team with 39 receptions for 330 yards.

LB Nick Martin: A first-team All-Big 12 selection in 2023, he ranked sixth nationally with 140 tackles, while also record 16 tackles for loss, six sacks and two interceptions.

LB Collin Oliver: Named by the media as a preseason choice for the All-Big 12 team. Last year, he was second-team all-conference after posting 73 tackles, 15 tackles for loss, six sacks, five pass breakups and two fumble recoveries.

WR Brennan Presley: The 5-foot-8, 160-pound senior is the go-to target for Bowman. Last year, he caught 101 passes (tied for third nationally) for 991 yards and six touchdowns, while also handling punt and kick return duties. In his career, he has 225 catches for 2,548 yards and 16 touchdowns.

Good to know

• CU and OSU were previously conference rivals from 1960-2010. The two teams met every year from 1960-1997. CU’s last win in the series came in 2005. OSU has won the last three meetings, matching its longest win streak in the series.

• Oklahoma State made its first-ever Big 12 title game appearance in 2021 (losing to Baylor) and made a return trip last year (losing to Texas). OSU is the only team to reach the title game twice in the last three years.

• Quarterback Alan Bowman will be in his seventh season of college football, as he was granted a medical hardship waiver for a season-ending injury three games into the 2019 season. He played three seasons at Texas Tech (2018-20) and was a seven-game starter as a true freshman. He made 16 starts with the Red Raiders before playing two seasons (2021-22) at Michigan, where he threw just 11 passes.

• In 2023, Oklahoma State reached the 10-win mark for the eighth time in the last 14 seasons (2010-23). From 1901-2009, OSU had just three 10-win seasons.

• Last year, seven different offensive linemen combined for 70 starts, with each of them getting at least three starts. All seven are back for the Cowboys, including preseason first-team All-Big 12 choices Dalton Cooper (tackle) and Joe Michalski (center).

• While the Cowboys are loaded with returning starters, they will have a new kicker. Alex Hale, was second-team All-Big 12 last year, has graduated. Junior Logan Ward is taking over those duties. He has been the kickoff specialist the last two years, handled punting duties in 2022 and was 7-for-7 on extra points last year.

• Punter Hudson Kaak is back. He averaged 39.7 yards per kick last year, landing 20 of his 38 punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard line.

Portal movement

OSU lost 11 players to the transfer portal, only one of which who started last year: receiver Jaden Bray, who caught 30 passes for 382 yards and is now at West Virginia. The other key loss was cornerback DJ McKinney (38 tackles, five pass breakups), now at CU. Running back Jaden Nixon and receiver Blaine Green (Stephen F. Austin) were also contributors last year. The Cowboys have added eight scholarship players through the portal, mainly to fill out some depth. Running back Trent Howland rushed for 354 yards at Indiana last year, while AJ Green ran for 951 yards in three seasons at Arkansas. At receiver Gavin Freeman (Oklahoma) and Da’Wain Lofton (Virginia Tech) should be in the rotation. Defensive end Obi Ezeigbo (Gannon University) could be a solid addition up front.

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Oklahoma

Oklahoma’s dramatic literacy goals now up to elementary schools to implement

Published

2 hours ago

May 30, 2026

Press Room

Oklahoma’s dramatic literacy goals now up to elementary schools to implement

Andrea Eger
| Oklahoma Watch

The Oklahoma Legislature wants a dramatic turnaround in student literacy rates to rival the so-called Mississippi Miracle.

Now, every teacher of kindergarten through third grade, and every reading specialist, instructional coach and principal in elementary schools across the state find themselves on the frontlines of meeting a host of new requirements under the Oklahoma Strong Readers Act – and more importantly, will be trying to achieve measurable success where past efforts have fallen short.

They’ve got the summer break to digest new non-negotiables, as one state official over early literacy describes the new legislative mandates, and to prepare for heightened expectations come August to intervene with struggling readers and to communicate with parents about their child’s challenges.

At Jenks East Elementary School in South Tulsa, Mandy Shimp works by day as the Title I reading specialist for third and fourth grade. On evenings and weekends, she works as a private tutor for children with language-based learning disorders, including dyslexia, drawing on her advanced training as a certified academic language therapist.

When she heard talk of imposing a strict, new requirement to retain – or hold back – the vast majority of Oklahoma students who don’t pass the state reading test by the end of third grade, Shimp went into research mode. She ended up filling a binder with information about the decade-long investment of time and at least $100 million into teacher training that laid the groundwork for Mississippi student literacy rates to climb from second-to-last to top-tier between 2013 and 2024.

Now, she is questioning why Oklahoma lawmakers have imposed this key component of Mississippi’s law, referred to there as the third-grade gate, with just one year for educators to prepare.

“They’re expecting us to build this foundation in a year,” Shimp said. “Teacher training is not an extra — it is the foundation. We can pass laws, mandate screeners, and retain students, but if teachers are not deeply trained in how reading develops, how to teach phonological awareness, how to diagnose reading difficulties, and how to intervene effectively, the legislation will not produce the results people are hoping for.”

During 24 years in education, Shimp has attended more than 100 meetings with parents, teachers and administrators to help decide whether retention or probationary promotion to the next grade level is most appropriate for a child. That firsthand experience has her most troubled by the students who won’t qualify for so-called good-cause exemptions allowed under Senate Bill 1778.

“Students not on IEPs (Individualized Education Programs, which are customized for children with disabilities) can be retained up to two times – once in kindergarten, first or second, and then again in third grade,” Shimp said, shaking her head. “I begged, I begged, I begged, I reached out to legislators – `Please take that out.’

“That is an eighth grader driving,” she said. “That is a kid graduating when they’re 20 years old. It is not effective. If they are not on an IEP, there’s other issues going on.”

Rush to provide state guidance, support

The same person credited by State Superintendent Lindel Fields with devoting hundreds of work hours as the point person for the Oklahoma State Department of Education on SB 1778 as it moved through the legislative process is now leading the state-level work to implement the new law.

“We are going through this with a fine-toothed comb right now, making sure districts will have what they need to implement this in the fall,” said Melissa Ahlgrim, director of literacy policy and programs at OSDE. “A lot of this is not new.”

Because of the comprehensive overhaul of the Strong Readers Act, state education officials are busy updating the OSDE webpage on the subject, writing a special newsletter for statewide distribution, preparing two public webinars scheduled for July, and speaking at summer conferences for educators.

The most urgent requirements, Ahlgrim said, are for all schools to use screeners to identify students’ reading challenges early and to begin reporting to parents several times each school year about their child’s Student Literacy Intervention Plan beginning in August. She said there will also be literacy-related changes in how state funding is calculated in the 2026-27 academic year, but that is a concern for school district administrators.

“The biggest misunderstanding I see is third grade is too late,” Ahlgrim said. “We have to be helping them starting in kindergarten. It is still up to schools to decide how they will best meet the needs of their students, but they must better define the framework. We are defining those fences, so there is a lot of freedom left within those fences, but if you’re way off in another pasture, that won’t work. There are some new non-negotiables.”

Chief among those new non-negotiables is who will be allowed to move on to fourth grade – and who will not.

State test data for 2024-25 show that 21,300 third graders failed to score at basic or above, meaning that under the new law, they could have been held back unless they qualified for an exemption. But that part of SB 1788, as well as a new requirement for schools to give second graders the state’s third-grade reading test unless their parents opt out, won’t kick in until 2027-28.

That new testing mandate is the subject of the most questions and concerns Ahlgrim and her team at the state Education Department are reportedly receiving, and they don’t yet have all of the answers.

“We are still trying to figure that out because it was added later in the (legislative) process,” Ahlgrim said. “They (legislators) had been talking to Indiana, which has done a version of this, but they have an opt-in for second graders to take the third-grade test. One of the platforms the authors had was, `We need to stay the course. We’re not going to see a change in one year.’”

To support the overhaul of the Strong Readers Act, the state budget includes more than $43 million for reading instruction and interventions in schools, $5 million in supplemental funding for teacher training academies this summer, and $5 million in ongoing annual funding for teacher training programs. Additional funding will support reading-at-home initiatives and statewide math and reading screeners, helping educators identify students’ learning needs earlier.

Among those increases is a rapid expansion of Help Elevate Reading Outcomes for Every Student, which the legislature established as a pilot program three years ago.

Ahlgrim’s team is on a hiring spree to expand the literacy instructional team that will be working with 145 of the state’s approximately 1,000 elementary schools to implement science-based reading instruction through professional development and coaching for teachers and principals. They ended 2025-26 with 15 on the team, and are aiming to fill new positions to deploy a team of 30 across the state beginning in August.

HEROES team members said they are most concerned about schools that don’t already have well-articulated systems for identifying students reading below grade level and providing specialized, targeted instruction to help them catch up.

“Like in a car, that check engine light comes on,” said Classie Nolan, who worked 17 years as a teacher and instructional reading coach at Frederick before joining the HEROES team 3 years ago. “What skills are they missing? Where are we having roadblocks for this student? That’s where we provide a diagnostic assessment. We’re not going to ask for a tire when it could be a problem with our transmission. We have to diagnose it and get to the root of the problem.”

Lolly Cole, an Ada-based member of the HEROES team, said teacher training and buy-in by elementary school principals are key to improving student outcomes in reading.

“As a teacher, you get concerned you don’t have the time to balance it all out,” Cole said. “But the great thing I’ve seen from training or classes we’ve worked with, is the reaction of, `Wow, I never learned about phonics and phonemic awareness.’ I understand the concerns – there’s only so much time to balance between family and work. But this is a process. It’s not a quick fix. Most of the teachers I’ve come into contact with are excited. We are all here to make a difference for kids and our communities.”

Ripple Effects

Public school educators aren’t the only ones preparing for the implementation of SB 1778, according to Sandra Valentine, who teaches third grade at Trinity School, a private school in Oklahoma City dedicated to students with learning differences.

“My school will keep growing and more schools like it will keep popping up all around that state,” she said. “If I’m told three times a year my kid might be retained, I’m going to be a momma bear and say, `Where can I take my kid so they won’t be 19 when they graduate?’”

When Ryan Walters, a political lightning rod, entered office as state superintendent three years ago, Valentine walked away from public schools after teaching third grade for 12 years combined at Little Axe and Tecumseh.

Still, she thinks about returning to work in a public school one day, and she continues to visit the state Capitol to advocate for public school policies she feels are best for the public school students in her own family, her youngest daughter and six grandchildren.

“I have thought about it, but Ryan Walters’ policies are still there,” Valentine said. “We have not changed anything, really.”

Her school is growing so rapidly that its kindergarten-through-third-grade classes now require a larger building. That means working through the start of summer break. Sorting through the contents of her classroom this week, Valentine said the tote bags, stickers and large painted poster emblazoned with her personal motto, “Literacy is non-negotiable,” will all certainly make the move to her new classroom.

“We have a lot of state officials tour here, wanting to know what we’re doing. (State Senator) Adam Pugh, when he came to my room, asked where my painted poster is – because he had heard of it,” she said, with a laugh.

The difference-makers, Valentine said, are that all teachers must have specialized training or certification in reading instruction, every student attends reading therapy class daily, and Trinity students aren’t subjected to the state’s high-stakes standardized test.

“We are meeting them where they’re at,” she said. “Not third-grade level, but working backward to where they are. Now, I’m no longer teaching to a test and freely teaching to the needs of my students. Why can’t we just put this in a public school?”

Valentine previously worked as a consultant to help improve schools’ academic results by targeting students who were just shy of meeting the benchmark for reading proficiency with state test prep.

“It’s all a numbers game,” Valentine said. “When our lawmakers say our kids in public schools are not proficient in reading, it’s not like a third-grade child is not reading Dick and Jane. It is an 8- or 9-year-old having to listen to 15 minutes of instructions right off the bat, then be on a computer for two to three hours, navigating passages that are 200-300 words long – sometimes on subject matter they have no familiarity with – and answering 60 questions. If they’re not passing after all that, then that’s considered not reading on grade level.”

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

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Oklahoma

President Donald Trump endorses an Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate

Published

12 hours ago

May 29, 2026

Press Room

President Donald Trump endorses an Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate

President Donald Trump posted a statement on Truth Social:

“It is my Great Honor to endorse MAGA Warrior, Mike Mazzei, who is running for Governor of Oklahoma, a State which I love, and WON BIG — All 77 out of 77 Counties in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and with the Highest Popular Vote Count, EVER!

As a successful Businessman, and former Chairman of the State Senate Finance Committee, and later, as Oklahoma’s Secretary of Budget, Mike knows the AMERICA FIRST Policies required to Grow our Economy, Create GREAT Jobs, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., and Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE. As your next Governor, Mike will fight tirelessly to Support our Amazing Farmers and Ranchers, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Ensure LAW AND ORDER, Strengthen our Military/Veterans, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment.

Mike Mazzei has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of Oklahoma — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

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Oklahoma

Oklahoma State Live Score for NCAA Baseball Regional Opener vs. USC Upstate

Published

1 day ago

May 29, 2026

Press Room

Oklahoma State Live Score for NCAA Baseball Regional Opener vs. USC Upstate

The Oklahoma State Cowboys and the USC Upstate Spartans meet in the first game of the Tuscaloosa Regional on Friday.

The Cowboys (37-20) and the Spartans (33-28) have never met on the diamond. Both enter the game on hot streaks. Oklahoma State didn’t win the Big 12 Tournament, but the Cowboys have won 11 of their last 14 games. The Spartans won the Big South Conference Tournament champions and have won 14 of their last 16 games.

The game is the first of two in Tuscaloosa. The second game features the host school, Alabama, facing Alabama State. The winners of the first two games will meet Saturday for a trip to the regional final on Sunday.

Oklahoma State fans can keep up with the game here, including lineups and inning by inning details on the game. Check out Oklahoma State On SI’s NCAA Tournament Central for everything related to the Tuscaloosa Regional.

Game Details

Oklahoma State head coach Josh Holliday. | STEVE SISNEY / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Oklahoma State vs. USC Upstate

Time: 1 p.m. central

TV: ESPN+ (Derek Jones & Jared Mitchell on the call). NOTE: TV is subject to change without notice. Game times and TV for games played after Friday will be announced.

Radio: Cowboy Radio Network & The Varsity Network App/93.7 KSPI-FM or okla.state/GetVarsity (Rex Holt on the call)