Former OSU wide receiver Josh Cooper joins Carson Cunningham and Colby Powell to discuss the 2011 team reunion. Cooper shares his memories of the season and looks ahead to the 10th anniversary reunion on Saturday.

You know what helps the show and helps us make more shows? When you rate us on Apple Podcasts or subscribe to our pod: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Stitcher | SoundCloud | Overcast

As always, we appreciate our sponsor Chris’ University Spirit.

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Mike Gundy announced two weeks ago that Tre Sterling’s season was over because of an injury, and that became officially official on Wednesday as the star safety revealed on social media that he had surgery that would indeed end his season.

Sterling announced the news in part to dispel unfounded rumors that he had opted out. His girlfriend shared that Tre had been “playing through” the injury.

“I want to thank everyone for the support and prayers,” he said on Twitter. “I wish I could be playing this season but God has other plans for me. I can honestly say I left everything on the field and I’m so glad to have people in my life that show me unconditional love.”

To kill rumors: Tre did NOT opt out of the season, he got injured & was trying to play through it. Today he had surgery, & recovery time was unknown (hint the confusion). We now know he will not be returning this season.

I’m proud of you 3, & i’ll always be your biggest fan pic.twitter.com/POHRukS8Li

— Madz (@madisonhartley_) September 29, 2021

Sterling was arguably OSU’s best defensive back last season patrolling the back end of the defense at safety, and his announcement that he wanted to return in 2021 was a big boon for the defense.

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The 2011 Big 12 title-winning OSU football team will get a special tribute on Saturday, so it’s only fitting that the star of the squad, Brandon Weeden, will step into the spotlight ahead of the game against Baylor.

Weeden, the quarterback who led the Cowboys to the conference crown, will on Saturday serve as the Orange Power VIP for the game, which means he’ll get to lead the “Orange Power” pregame chant as Rashaun Woods did last week. It’s an honor specifically reserved for VIPs and new on the tradition list after Mr. Orange Power himself retired earlier this year.

It just has to be @bweeden3.#LetsRide I #GoPokes pic.twitter.com/RGPCCKNA8m

— OSU Cowboy Football (@CowboyFB) September 29, 2021

This won’t be the first time Weeden has been in Stillwater for a Saturday game — he served on the ESPN+ broadcast team for OSU’s season-opener — but it is the first time he’ll step in front of a sold-out crowd to get the fans rolling. He’s likely to be met with a big applause as a fan favorite. Oh, and it seems he’s already got a head start on how he’ll kick off festivities, too …

Orange!…. https://t.co/DL49R3fHWa

— Brandon Weeden (@bweeden3) September 29, 2021

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­­Inside the Numbers: OSU vs. Baylor

The Cowboys get a week to rest next week, but before that gets here, they have a top 25 bout against fellow-unbeaten Baylor.

Oklahoma State players met with the media after practice Tuesday. Here are three things they hit on.

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Stillward ‘Felt Like Home’ for Woodard

Hunter Woodard is one of only three Cowboys from Illinois.

A Tuscola, Illinois native, Woodard has been instrumental in OSU’s offensive line regaining its footing this season. Pro Football Focus graded Woodard’s performance in Boise as a 76.6, the second-highest an OSU lineman has graded this season (trailing Josh Sills’ performance against K-State this past week).

Woodard’s high school coaching staff had a tie to the OSU coaching staff. That led to the Pokes being able to pluck Woodard out of the Prairie State despite him having offers closer to home, like Illinois and Notre Dame.

“Just the area, the atmosphere, the Cowboy culture, it felt like home.” Woodard said. “Stillwater just kind of has this small-town feel that most college towns don’t really have, and it felt like home.”

Bernard-Converse’s Comfort at Corner Growing

K-State attacked Jarrick Bernard-Converse at the start of Saturday’s game, but the OSU corner stood up to the test.

K-State quarterback Will Howard threw Bernard-Converse’s direction five times on the opening drive, completing two of those passes for 15 yards. Bernard-Converse had three pass breakups in that drive, all of which denied the Wildcats touchdowns.

Bernard-Converse is in just his second season as a corner, but he started as a safety in 2018 and 2019. On the season he has 16 tackles and a team-best four pass breakups.

“I feel like I’m more comfortable at corner now because I’ve got the experience, and I’ve learned from a lot of guys before me,” Bernard-Converse said. “I feel more comfortable now, and I feel like it’s a better fit.”

Antwine’s Strength

OSU safety Kolby Harvell-Peel said it’s tougher for the linemen to do pullups.

His reasoning makes sense, they have to pull up more body weight. At 300 pounds, Israel Antwine in apparently an exception to the rule, though.

“I looked up one day, and Izzy had no band, so he was doing them just by himself, and he had eight chains on his neck,” Harvell-Peel said. “He did them and jumped off and he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ To see that dude be a D-lineman and be able to do that, he’s a freak show.”

Antwine had his best game of the young season against K-State where he had two tackles for loss, a sack and a pair of quarterback hurries.

In his third season with the Cowboys after transferring from Colorado, Antwine is asked to do a lot of dirty work on the interior of the Cowboys’ defensive line. He has six tackles in three games this season, having missed the season-opener against Missouri State.

“He’s made of iron,” Brendon Evers said. “If he had an injury, he sure wouldn’t tell ya. It was really good to see him come back last game. He seems to be coming along well. He’s a hard-worker in the room, always first in line.”

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Oklahoma entered the season as the favorite to win the Big 12 for the seventh consecutive season and no one batted an eye. And heck, why would they? The Sooners have (had?!) a Heisman contender at QB in Spencer Rattler, an improved defense led by a star NFL prospect in Nik Bonitto, a respected coach and as much momentum as any non-Alabama/non-Clemson program in America.

It’s not wild to think OU should win the league and do so running away.

And maybe it still will.

But four games into the season, the conference looks as open as it has in forever. OU’s offense has sputtered significantly against the likes of Tulane, Nebraska and West Virginia. And across the state, OSU’s offense has not looked much better, scoring 23 on Missouri State, 21 on Boise State, and 28 on Tulsa over the last month before pouring it on for 31 last week in a season-high output.

For OU and OSU, it has been defense that has won football games. OU came up with big stops late to thwart what would’ve been a stunning upset at home against a no good, very bad Nebraska team. Ditto for tilts against West Virginia and Tulane. OSU’s defense has done the same all season, winning three of four by a single possession and relying — heavier than ever — on a unit that frequently has been a distant second in strength under Mike Gundy to the offense.

It’s weird times we’re living in, when there’s enough defense to go around but neither state school can score at will. But a month into the season, it seems clear that both OSU and OU have very good defenses and struggling offenses with real holes. Blocking for both teams has been questionable at times and bad at others. Decision-making at the quarterback spot has been bad at times and horrific at others.

We’ve become so accustomed to both these programs running high-powered offense that perhaps we didn’t — and still don’t — fully appreciate how much it takes to field fabulous offenses on an annual basis. OSU’s schemes have stood the test of time under Gundy in the most successful era of OSU football. Same for OU under Lincoln Riley. Yet entering the meat of the conference schedule, how much offense OSU and OU can muster — and how much of the past glory it can channel and replicate — may ultimately decide who wins the league.

OSU has the best defense in the league. OU is probably not far behind. But neither right now look capable on offense enough to be considered a runaway favorite to win the conference. It’s going to take growth and consistency from Spencer Rattler or Spencer Sanders to make the offense hum at normal levels. It’s going to take skill players emerging into reliable threats akin to the Tylan Wallaces, CeeDee Lambs and Justice Hills of yesteryear. And, ultimately, it’s going to take just enough offense to sprinkle with already-good defenses to emerge as conference contenders.

Neither team has it yet, but in a wide-open Big 12 race early in the year, it seems the only significant hole for the two Oklahoma schools who have avoided bad losses and emerged — thus far — unscathed by winning in ways neither has typically done: with defense.

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The Daily Bullets are brought to you by Hoboken Coffee: Get 20% off your first order. 

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OSU Bullets

• Why Cowboy running back Jaylen Warren has turned out “quite a bit better” than Mike Gundy and the Pokes anticipated

• Moussa Cisse’s athleticism and size are game changers for the Pokes

• Cowboy safety Tre Sterling underwent season-ending surgery this week

• This Mike Gundy quote from Monday hones in on what’s probably the most crucial element to OSU’s success under Spencer Sanders:

“We lost the special teams battle, lost the penalties, but didn’t have the turnover issue. We made up for it in that area…”

[PFB]

A (maybe meaningless) Oklahoma State stat: Spencer Sanders did not throw an interception against Boise State or Kansas State, marking the first time the OSU QB has gone two full starts without throwing a pick since the first two games of the 2019 season, his first under center.

— Eli Lederman (@ByEliLederman) September 27, 2021

• The Baylor coach made some comments about the Cowboys in his weekly presser – some interesting stuff on how the Pokes attack one-on-one matchups and how the Pokes use Spencer Sanders

• What Mike Boynton had to say after the first practice

• 538 has the Pokes with a seven percent chance of winning the Big 12 – only below OU, Texas, and Baylor

• This Brennan Presley piece is great – you always wonder how guys his size make it in the game

• This may be turning into the Spencer Sanders’ daily apologist article – he had a great game against K-State.

• We love you, Pete.

Some folks up in Chicago said @OSUPistolPete wasn't a good mascot. Well, around here we respectfully disagree.#GoPokes I #okstate pic.twitter.com/TZgCfk2lbz

— Oklahoma State Athletics (@OSUAthletics) September 29, 2021

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Non-OSU Bullets

• Hard work isn’t the point at the office
• Yes, the CFP race is more wide open than usual
• The tale of the pig and the sheep (faith-based)

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Brennan Presley was on the bad end of a highlight reel play in Boise, but he got back up.

In Oklahoma State’s 21-20 victory, Boise State safety JL Skinner caught Presley in the middle of a jump cut and nearly forced Presley into a backflip with the hard hit.

THIS HIT pic.twitter.com/FV4R2lIxBi

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) September 19, 2021

But Presley got up, and a week removed from the hit that made it’s way on SportsCenter and all over social media, Presley was again showing his toughness. This time in a highlight that was more favorable to him.

In the first half of OSU’s 31-20 victory against Kansas State, Presley caught a crossing route from Spencer Sanders at the K-State 7-yard line. From there, Presley spun off K-State defensive back Reggie Stubblefield before bouncing off a hit from TJ Smith only to regain his footing and fight over Wayne Jones into the end zone. It was a 20-yard touchdown reception that probably should’ve just been a 13-yard gain, but the 5-foot-8, 175-pounder just had too much fight in him.

There goes that man #LetsRide | @bprezzle pic.twitter.com/HF5SZywISD

— OSU Cowboy Football (@CowboyFB) September 26, 2021

“My high school coaches always told me, because I played defensive in high school, so they always told me, ‘If you hit a man, and he stays down, you have him — whether it’s physically or mentally or something like that,'” Presley said Tuesday. “So they always told me, ‘If you get hit, always try to get back up. Try to get up before the person that hit you, but never stay down.’ So, every time I get hit, unless I’m paralyzed or break something or something like that, I’m always going to try to get right back up.”

Four games into his sophomore season, Presley has caught 11 passes for 178 yards and Saturday’s touchdown. He also has 160 return yards split between punts and kicks.

Being an electric, yet undersized kid from Bixby, Presley has quickly become a fan favorite in Stillwater. The type of attitude he showed about the hit on the blue turf should only grow that celebrity.

“I’m 5-9, 165 pounds; [Skinner] was like 6-4, 220, so honestly, if he couldn’t do that to me, then I’d be worried,” Presley said. “That’s not the last time I’ll get hit hard like that.”

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On Saturday, members of the 2011 Cowboy football team will be honored during Oklahoma State's top-25 showdown against No. 21 Baylor.

STILLWATER — Oklahoma State held its first official practice of the 2021-22 season on Tuesday. After the festivities, Mike Boynton, Isaac Likekele, Avery Anderson and Moussa Cisse met with reporters in Gallagher-Iba Arena to discuss the practice and the upcoming season.

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