RANDALL SWEET

Randall is a recruiting analyst and staff writer at AllSooners focusing primarily on OU Football and the recruiting trail.

Working as a journalist, Randall has covered the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and high school sports across the state.

A 2022 University of Oklahoma graduate, Randall hails from Lubbock, TX. While in college, Sweet wrote for the OU Daily in addition to working with Sooner Sports Pad and OU Nightly. Following his time at OU, Sweet served as the Communications Coordinator at Visit Oklahoma City before leaving to join the team at AllSooners. The West Texas native has bylines in the Norman Transcript and is a Staff Writer for Inside the Thunder.

Randall holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK. 

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STILLWATER — The new Big 12 has arrived, and the old guard has departed.

In building his program from conference also-ran to a consistent contender for league titles, Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy overcame nearly every obstacle his Cowboys confronted.

Rung by rung, they climbed the ladder. 

In 2021, they made their first appearance in the Big 12 Championship Game. Last year, they returned again. The Cowboys beat Texas nine times in the last 14 meetings after downing the Longhorns just twice in the previous 24.

On the Cowboys’ climb toward conference supremacy, one major goal remained irritatingly unattainable. Though the balance of power in the Bedlam rivalry had been leaning OSU’s way with two wins in the last three years, OU’s overall dominance dulled the recent orange tint of the series.  

But the tectonic plates of college football have shifted. OU is off to the Southeastern Conference, and the Cowboys are in position to emerge from the Sooners’ long shadow in a new Big 12 that lacks blueblood power at the top. 

More: Which Oklahoma State football game is most important this season?

When the 18th-ranked Cowboys open the season against South Dakota State at 1 p.m. on Aug. 31 at Boone Pickens Stadium, they embark on a season that will not include Bedlam.

The haunting feeling of a potential loss to OU ruining an otherwise great season no longer sits in the pit of OSU fans’ stomachs.

Bedlam is a tale of bygone days, and the sun shines a little brighter at Boone Pickens Stadium. 

“If you look at what this program has done under Coach Gundy’s leadership, certainly going back to 2010, we’re winning like a blueblood,” OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg said. “We’re top 10 in the number of wins, and if you look at the list of who the other nine are, it’s everybody you would think. 

“Then there we are. So our goal is to keep winning at that level.”

The Big 12 looks like a league built for wide-ranging competitiveness thanks to an evenly balanced collection of programs. Yet the Cowboys have shown a consistency over the past 14 years that few teams can match.

More: Which Oklahoma State football freshmen to watch in 2024 preseason camp

“I think that we’ve got a number of teams in this league that have an opportunity to make a move national,” Gundy said at Big 12 Media Days last month. “Whether anybody can take over and dominate for an extended period of time would be hard to tell at this point.”

Perhaps new rivals await OSU in the latest version of the Big 12, like newcomers Utah or Arizona. Maybe familiar faces like Kansas State or Texas Tech. 

Or could this simply be the time for OSU to forget about rivalries and focus on trophies?

OSU has just one Big 12 title in the league’s 28-year history, but the landscape feels ripe for a program to establish itself as a standard-bearer of the conference. And OSU’s recent trend is heading in the right direction.

“Our goal is being in the championship game every single year,” Weiberg said. “We came out of the previous version of the Big 12 Conference, as we knew it then, by reaching that game two of the last three years. So we want to continue that kind of success. 

“We want to carry the momentum we have coming out of that version of the Big 12 into the new version of the Big 12 and keep rolling with that kind of success.”

More: What are Oklahoma State football’s pressing questions as Cowboys open 2024 preseason camp?

2024 OSU football schedule

• Week 1: OSU vs. South Dakota State, 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31 (ESPN+)
• Week 2: OSU vs. Arkansas, 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 7 (ABC)
• Week 3: OSU at Tulsa, 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 (ESPN2)
• Week 4: OSU vs. Utah, TBA Saturday, Sept. 21
• Week 5: OSU at Kansas State, TBA Saturday, Sept. 28
• Week 6: OSU vs. West Virginia, TBA Saturday, Oct. 5
• Week 7: Bye week
• Week 8: OSU at BYU, 9:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18 (ESPN)
• Week 9: OSU at Baylor, TBA Saturday, Oct. 26
• Week 10: OSU vs. Arizona State, TBA Saturday, Nov. 2
• Week 11: OSU at TCU, TBA Saturday, Nov. 9
• Week 12: Bye week
• Week 13: OSU vs. Texas Tech, TBA Saturday, Nov. 23
• Week 14: OSU at Colorado, 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 29 (ABC)

NORMAN — Do you know who’s starting at kicker for the Oklahoma Sooners next Friday? If so, pass that information along to Brent Venables’ office.

By Tuesday night, the competition pitting incumbent Zach Schmit against Florida State transfer Tyler Keltner had yielded no more clarity than it did when Keltner arrived in Norman during the spring. All Venables revealed Tuesday was that it had trimmed to the two — no mention of freshman sensation Liam Evans, who was a Kohl’s Kicking 5-star.

“[I] love where we’re at in the kicking game right now,” Venables told media near Memorial Stadium’s south end zone. “Still have a battle there with our placekickers. That’ll go through the end of this week and then we’ll make a decision. Really feel like we would need both guys potentially this season. Zach’s got a really big leg, and he’s really good at the kickoffs. . . Liam Evans has done some good things there.”

SoonerScoop’s George Stoia reported that Venables called Keltner the “odds on favorite” to win the job four weeks ago. It isn’t clear if that has changed.

Schmit hit 15-of-21 field goals last year (71.4 percent), good for sixth best in the Big 12, and hit a long of 46 yards. Fifty of his 93 kickoffs resulted touchbacks. His running streak of 124 made extra point attempts ranks fifth in program history. But — his struggles to connect on crucial kicks prompted the Sooners’ staff to bring on Keltner, a fifth-year senior who cut his teeth at the FCS level for four years, earned first team All-SoCon nods at East Tennessee State each of his last two seasons, then moved home to Tallahassee to back up Ryan Fitzgerald at Florida State.

“The competition will help bring out the best in everybody is my expectation, so Tyler Keltner and Liam Evans will have a chance to come in here and make us better that way,” Venables said in March.

The Sooners open the season Friday, Aug. 30 against Temple. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. If the Sooners kick first, it will likely be by Schmit’s leg. Keltner could be the field goal guy. Oklahoma fans could see a different specialist starting at kickoff, field goal and punt for the first time since Nick Hodgson, Michael Hunnicut and Jed Barnett split duties in 2014. Luke Elzinga appears to be Venables’ Week 1 starter.

In the April 20 Spring Game, Keltner missed his lone attempt from 44 and Schmit hit his only try from 29. All three kickers were 2-of-2 on touchbacks and 2-of-2 on PATs. 

Special teams analyst Doug Deakin will be able to coach both at practice and from the sideline under the NCAA’s new rules. Should either kicker struggle — or both — Deakin will be able to consult players directly and make a switch should it become necessary.

“It gives you a chance to really make some improvement in the areas that you need to,” Venables said. “But that’s been a lot of fun. Doug’s incredibly passionate, high energy, really smart, great teacher, inspires and motivates as good as any coach as I’ve been around. The players have tremendous respect for him and he’s just a really effective communicator. So I expect us to improve from where we were.”