Oklahoma State has been one of the best home teams in the nation in recent years, but some road games have been a cause for concern.

Over the past three seasons, OSU has lost only two games at Boone Pickens Stadium, boasting multiple 10-win seasons and trips to the Big 12 Championship. Despite the team’s overall success, winning away from Stillwater has proved challenging at times for the Cowboys.

Coming off one of those 10-win campaigns, OSU is looking to compete for a Big 12 title and make the College Football Playoff for the first time. Of course, to achieve those goals, the Cowboys will need to play well away from home.

Winning on the road is typically not easy, but the Cowboys’ first matchup away from Stillwater is in Tulsa, so it will still feel a bit like a home game. Considering the Golden Hurricane’s struggles recently, the opponent will not do much to make the game interesting.

While the Cowboys will make a couple of trips to Texas next season to face Baylor and TCU, there are three road games that stand out as the most difficult.

3. BYU

A Friday night under the lights in Provo will be a challenge for OSU. After needing an 18-point comeback to win in double overtime against the Cougars in Stillwater last season, the Cowboys can’t afford to take this matchup lightly. With the Cowboys’ potential to come in as a top 15 team, it could be the rowdiest environment OSU faces all season.

2. Colorado

OSU will get an early kickoff on Black Friday in Boulder. With a short week after a potentially intense matchup with Texas Tech, the Cowboys could experience some hangover in this matchup. 

While Colorado’s season could go a few different directions, if it enters the game with a bowl game still in reach, OSU could face a desperate team. Plus, OSU’s past three regular-season finales have all been one-possession games.

1. Kansas State

OSU will open conference play by hosting Utah, but the schedule does not let up after that, as the Cowboys will head to Kansas State a week later. Last season, OSU’s matchup against Kansas State sparked a five-game winning streak and helped turn the season around.

As both teams enter next season as Big 12 contenders, this is projected to be one of the most important conference matchups. Manhattan has also been a tough place for OSU to win, as the Cowboys lost 48-0 in their most recent trip in 2022.

READ MORE: Oklahoma State Set to Host 3-star In-State RB Kenny Golston

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When he leapt 7 feet and 6 inches into the air, breaking the NFHS high jump record as a senior at Yukon High School, Vernon Turner first began to think the Olympics could be in his future.

He had already earned an invitation to his first Olympic trials. But it rained. And while he executed perfect jumps during warmups, he had a poor showing and ultimately didn’t qualify.

Turner’s mother, Melonie Carpenter, knowing he was disappointed with how he performed, remembers the advice she offered at that moment.

“I’ve always told him,” Carpenter said, “‘Professionals are dedicated, and they put everything into whatever it is that they’re doing. And the ones that don’t put 100% in, or 150%, they don’t get to be in that little, small percentage.’”

When the Olympic flame is lit during the opening ceremony Friday, Turner will be the lone U.S. Olympian out of 592 athletes to represent Oklahoma. The former OU track and field standout who was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but raised in Yukon, is one of the youngest high jumpers in the field.

Turner’s family will make the over 4,800-mile journey to Paris to watch him live out his dreams. While excited, Carpenter said they’re nervous to travel outside the U.S. as they haven’t done so outside of cruises, and she’ll be on the edge of her seat watching her son compete.

More: 2024 Paris Olympics: A look at each competitor with Oklahoma ties

“I’m going to be a nervous wreck, I’ll tell you right now,” Carpenter said. “Vernon said he’s not nervous at all. He’s excited. So I’m glad to hear him say that.”

Turner was originally an avid basketball player who was dunking by his freshman year of high school before his coach forced him to go out for track and field. 

Carpenter has seen firsthand how hard her son has worked to cement himself as one of the best in the world. 

Turner’s work ethic was instilled in him by Carpenter, who worked night shifts mostly seven days a week throughout his childhood. Turner was forced to grow up fast and developed immense dedication for high jumping during his freshman year of high school.

Turner opened up to The Oklahoman earlier this month about the mental hurdles he faced after finishing dead last at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. For the past year, he’s buckled down and focused on getting himself ready for the leading international sporting event.

“The mental game is tough,” Turner said. “Throughout my whole career, it’s been up and down. … Learning the mental part of it is so huge. You have to mature and just be able to focus on one thing. You can’t let moments be bigger than you.”

More: Mussatto: Imagining Thunder’s Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams on Team USA in 2028 Olympics

The past few weeks before heading abroad, Turner has been entrenched in final preparations and has worked with the Sooners’ vertical jumps coach Jerel Langley in Oklahoma.

“He’s really been working,” Carpenter said. “He’s been doing some different calisthenic things to get his ups going.”

Fans can follow Turner’s Olympic journey on the RIZZ app where he’ll be answering questions and giving updates along the way.

Turner’s family is anxious to get overseas to not only watch him compete on the world stage, but to watch him represent home. 

“He’s amazing, he’s worked hard,” Carpenter said. “It means a lot to everyone in Yukon, people that have watched him since he was little because he started here in grade school, he’s been here his whole life. They’ve all kept up with him, it’s amazing.”

2024 Paris Olympic Games

• When: July 26 through August 11
• Where: Paris, France
• Track & field: Runs August 1-11 (men’s high jump begins Aug. 7)

The ultimate fate of a prairie dog colony in Yukon is now known.

These wild animals have been a hot topic for years as new developments kept forcing them to migrate to the Northwest near Route 66. Last week, many people noticed cages at the location off of Sara Road, wondering what was happening.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, some of them were relocated to a new home. “All right guys now don’t take off,” said Kathy Barrett, who feeds the prairie dogs every day. “Come on, we’re not going to bother you.”

Barrett says she loves animals but has developed a soft spot for an urban colony of black-tailed prairie dogs in Yukon.

“They are my babies, but everybody has a responsibility to wildlife,” said Barrett.

Last week, the ODWC says it worked with a research team from the University of Louisiana to capture 38 prairie dogs using baited traps.

“While the prairie dogs were under anesthesia, they drew blood samples and they took a small tissue sample for their data to look at genetics and disease resistance,” said Kurt Kuklinski, Wildlife Diversity and Research Supervisor for the ODWC.

Kuklinski said his team then took the animals in carriers to a former colony site in northwestern Oklahoma.

“It’s not good for the prairies to be missing such an awesome creature on the landscape,” said Kuklinski.

He says by putting them back in their natural habitat, the hope is they will thrive.

“Where they are right now in that urban environment, they’re not able to expand their colony beyond that single lot and they face threats from traffic and can’t move and do well as a colony there,” he said. “Where we’ve re-located them, they’ve got hundreds to thousands of acres to expand.”

As for the rest of them in Yukon, several hundred prairie dogs remain and will still pop up for visitors like Reina Flores.

“You see how they stand? And there’s some over,” Flores pointed out. “They look like they’re dogs, they stand up, they’re very cute,”

And as Barrett says, very resilient.

“They’re survivors, that’s for sure,” she said. “I want it to continue, I want people to have the joy of seeing wildlife and just getting back to nature.”

The Department of Wildlife says none of the prairie dogs were harmed during the move. They say it could take years to move the rest of them out of Yukon.

Photos courtesy of ODWC.