Oklahoma State University Athletics
Photography by Bruce Waterfield
This story was originally published in the Fall 2015 edition of POSSE Magazine.
The all-time leading scorer in the history of Oklahoma State football is a fellow by the name of Dan Bailey. He began his college career as a walk-on — a non-scholarship member of the Cowboy Football team. He ended his career as the winner of the Lou Groza Award, presented annually to the nation’s best kicker.
Bailey is now one of the most accurate placekickers in the history of the National Football League as a member of the Dallas Cowboys. And, incidentally, the person he unseated at the top of the OSU career scoring chart was a running back named Barry Sanders.
Brandon Weeden is one of the most celebrated quarterbacks in the history of OSU football. He began his college career as a walk-on. He went on to become an all-Big 12 quarterback, the signal caller for OSU’s first Big 12 championship team and a first-round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.
Bailey and Weeden, who were teammates in college and now in Dallas, are rare talents with rare stories. The odds of college football walk-ons cashing NFL paychecks are astronomical. The odds of a college football walk-on earning a scholarship are slim. The odds of a walk-on even making significant game-day contributions are stacked against him.
There are approximately 45 walk-ons on a typical Cowboy roster, estimates OSU’S Assistant Director of Recruiting Mike Groce. Groce helps fill out the Cowboy roster with walk-ons, invited walk-ons and transfers. The non-scholarship players are important pieces of the puzzle. Without them, live practices which are already greatly reduced at OSU, would probably disappear. However, despite the importance of their presence on a daily basis, the numbers game works against walk-ons and their longevity with the program.
There are only 85 football scholarships available each year, per NCAA rules. Those are gobbled up on the much-ballyhooed National Signing Day each February when scholarship offers become official. The only hope a walk-on has for receiving financial aid comes thanks to defections, injuries, grade casualties or just a change of a heart by a scholarship player. And when that rare event happens, the line for potential financial aid is 45 deep.
Groce estimates that of those 45 walk-ons on the roster each year, only three are likely to earn a scholarship during their career. But still they walk-on. They endure the same practices, conditioning drills and time demands as their scholarship counterparts. But their blood, sweat, tears, sprained ankles and muscle pulls are also accompanied by bills for tuition, housing and books, and sometimes they punch a time clock after practice to provide their own financial aid.
“I remember coming home during fall camp and my roommates would be sitting around playing video games,” said OSU tight end and walk-on Blake Jarwin. “I was just trying to get in a 30-minute nap before I had to go back to the stadium and spend the rest of my day.”
Walk-ons are often faceless, and, at least early on, maybe even nameless players who show up each day to pursue the life of a college football player — and not necessarily the glorified life of a college athlete. For most walk-ons, their only moment of glory takes place during pregame when they enter the stadium with the rest of the team. The rest of game day is spent staying out of the way on a crowded sideline.
During game week, they are almost always members of the scout team, providing the Cowboy offense and defense the same formations and plays that the opponent will use on Saturday.
OSU has a long history of walk-ons who have beaten the odds. In the 1970s, it was “Cowboy Rick” Antle. The non-descript defensive end/linebacker from Owasso was called by one newspaper the “littlest Cowboy” but ended his career as an all-Big Eight selection, team leader and fan favorite. In the 1980s, linebacker Matt Monger preceded Bailey and Weeden by going from Cowboy walk-on to all-conference performer and eventually on to the NFL.
Bailey and Weeden had a walk-on teammate known originally as “Stillwater” by the Cowboy coaching staff because no one knew his name. He turned heads when OSU’s kick return team could not block him during practice. Stillwater High School’s Bryant Ward eventually became an all-Big 12 fullback for Oklahoma State.
“I know who Bryant Ward is,” said OSU walk-on fullback/tight end Jeremy Seaton. “We’re next to each other on the walk-on wall.”
The walk-on program is so prominent at OSU, and so important to the coaches, that an entire wall in the west end zone displays the successes of walk-ons past and present.
“I think we attract quality walk-ons because of the success so many of them have had in our program,” said OSU head coach Mike Gundy. “They are a big part of what we do today, and really the walk-on program at OSU dates back decades. We are going to play the players that earn the right, regardless of their status as a walk-on or scholarship player. Everyone on our roster is aware of that.”
Gundy’s words are confirmed by his deeds. Several prominent walk-ons figure to play an important role for the Cowboys in 2015. We know this because they played important roles in 2014. Like many walk-ons, they came to Stillwater from small towns with big dreams, and at least three of them have already beaten the odds.
Cashion, Okla., sits at the westernmost point of a not-exactly-perfect triangle that connects Cashion, Edmond and Guthrie. There are 136 students enrolled at Cashion High School, according to the state of Oklahoma. There are 131 lockers in the Cowboy football dressing room. One of those lockers belongs to former Cashion High School star Jeremy Seaton. He began his playing career at the eight-man level before Cashion moved up to the traditional 11-man game during his sophomore season of high school.
Further down Interstate 35 and slightly further west than Cashion is Tuttle, Okla. Geographically it would be much easier for a Tuttle High School walk-on to make his way to the state’s other Big 12 institution. But a 2011 Fiesta Bowl appearance by OSU caught the attention of THS tight end Blake Jarwin.
Even further south on the interstate, across the Red River in Denton County, Texas, is Argyle. It is the home of OSU rising sophomore center Brad Lundblade. He became one of the more interesting stories of the 2014 season when he rose from walk-on to a critical piece in the late-season development of the Cowboys’ offensive line. Even more impressive was the fact that he contributed at one of the most complex positions on the roster as a true freshman. It would have been an almost unheard of accomplishment for a scholarship player. For a walk-on, it was almost unprecedented.
Seaton, Jarwin and Lundblade in many ways are the prototypical walk-on. None of the three ventured terribly far from home to attempt a college career. They did not play at the highest prep classification in their states, increasing the chances they could be overlooked during the recruiting process. And because of the size and speed at the high end of college football, two of the three had to undergo a position change to increase their chances of being a contributor. But now, entering the 2015 season, most fans of OSU football are familiar with the names, if not the faces, or Seaton, Jarwin and Lundblade.
Musical Schools
The first step, and perhaps the most critical for any walk-on, is making the decision of which college to attend. With no national letter of intent binding them to a university, the only real advantage of being a walk-on is the ability to school shop and find the situation that best fits you. It’s not much different than college players who go undrafted by the National Football League and are then free to shop around and sign with the pro team of their choice.
“I started thinking about college football during my junior year,” Seaton said. “I started growing a little bit and putting on more weight. During my sophomore year, I got interested in OSU because I thought I might play baseball.
“Before my senior year of high school I tried out for a pretty big baseball travel team that played in California, Florida and really all over the country,” he added. “I would have been back (home) for two or three days every three weeks. That’s when I knew I needed to decide between baseball and football.”
Not unlike Jarwin and Lundblade, Seaton could have punched his scholarship ticket at a lower level of college football. He was a bruising runner as a high school quarterback and played linebacker on defense.
“I was actually at a camp at OU and I was the top performer,” Seaton said. “That’s when a bunch of D-2 (Division II of NCAA football) and some of the I-AAs (Football Playoff Subdivision) scholarship offers started coming in.”
But Seaton was at the tender age of 17 when he learned that life could turn on a dime.
“It was actually a crazy thing,” he said. “My best friend from high school was going to OU and so it was between OU and OSU. And a girl I was talking to at the time happened to be babysitting (former OSU assistant Doug) Meacham’s kids. I gave her my highlight tape, and she gave it to him. He actually gave me a call and said I would have a preferred walk-on spot, and he would give me a spot in camp.”
In college football there are walk-ons and there are preferred walk-ons. Preferred walk-ons are assured of one of the estimated 45 walk-on spots. During fall camp, there are limits to the number of student-athletes who can report for preseason camp prior to the first day of school. Players who report in early August have a leg up on being a game-day contributor or at least an important part of the practice plan. And the staff usually knows their names.
“When (Meacham) told me I would be in the 105 (the number on the preseason camp roster prior to the beginning of the fall semester), I told him I would be there,” Seaton said.
“My mom thought I was crazy,” he continued. “I had these full-rides from smaller schools and I was turning them down. As soon as she got over that, she was 100 percent in. My dad has always been there. He knew if football didn’t work out I would still get a good education here.”
The typical OSU fan would consider Blake Jarwin a saved soul.
“I actually grew up an Oklahoma fan for a long time,” he said. “Tuttle is about 20 minutes from Norman and (former OU quarterback) Jason White was sort of a hometown hero.”
But Jarwin’s fandom began to take a turn in 2011 when Oklahoma State rolled to the Big 12 title. The run to the BCS win over Stanford caught his attention and an orange-inclined family completed the switch.
“I always knew who Cooper Bassett was,” Jarwin said. “When I was in middle school he was the high school superstar, and I knew when he went to OSU he made all sorts of plays.”
Cooper’s younger brother, Dawson, is on the current OSU roster.
“I was talking to Dawson one day in the Tuttle weight room and he was telling me that all of those Division II offers were great and I could do that or I could try to win a Big 12 championship one day. That helped me make my choice to come here as a walk-on.”
Oklahoma State has been one of the winningest programs in college football since the beginning of the 2008 season and that run of success not only caught the eye of Jarwin, but also of Lundblade.
“Around my junior year I started getting what I would guess to be mass recruiting mailers that they send out to a lot of people,” he said. “My dad and I came to a game my junior year of high school, and I just really liked it. That was a time when OSU was really successful. We had always followed the Big 12 closely so once I started getting things from them in the mail, I really started paying attention.
“This was the only place I considered walking on,” he added. “At that point I was getting recruited pretty hard here, and I thought I was really close to getting a scholarship offer. I sort of had my heart set on Oklahoma State, I guess like my dream school.”
Still the decision wasn’t easy.
Lundblade had 11 scholarship offers, including Tulsa, North Texas, Wake Forest and San Diego State. His position on the roster as a preferred walk-on and his spot on the early report list were a given.
That Awkward Moment
For every college freshman there is a transition. It happens in the residence halls, in the Greek houses, maybe in a college class room for the first time and certainly inside a football complex — especially for a walk-on.
“I came in after school had started,” Jarwin recalled of his freshman year at Oklahoma State in the fall of 2012. “I go to practice the first time and all of these guys are hopping around and they know exactly where to go. You just try to fit in, and follow everyone around. Probably that entire first year I just didn’t really talk to people. I had played offensive line in high school because we were short on linemen and here I was trying to play tight end. I was just trying to make a name for myself and be a part of the team.
“I do remember the first time I was at a team dinner on a Friday night before a game. Coach Gundy said the seniors could go eat, and I didn’t hear that part so I stood up and wondered why no one else was getting up. It took a second for me to catch on. That was embarrassing of course.”
If ever there was a headliner walk-on it would be Lundblade, he of the 11 scholarship offers. But he was still a true freshman at OSU — and a walk-on.
“I remember walking down the coaches’ hallway really early on,” Lundblade said. “I saw (offensive coordinator Mike) Yurcich coming down the other direction, and I spoke to him. He kind of nodded and said ‘What’s up’ and kept walking.”
“I know he had no idea who I was at that point. I was so new and not a scholarship player and I was going against the defense as part of the scout team offense every day and just wasn’t really around him. Joe Wickline had been my recruiting coach, and he wasn’t around by the time I got here. But the coaches were always respectful and treated the walk-ons the same as the scholarship guys.”
Seaton at least had his awkward moment in private.
“It was unbelievable because I came in July and was here for the workouts,” he said. “I knew coming in I wouldn’t be strong enough for these guys. I’ve never been very good in the weight room. I’ve never been one of those guys.
“I remember driving home with my elbows because I couldn’t use my arms. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t drive after those weight room workouts. The first four weeks here molded me more than anything I had done my entire life.”
Every walk-on knows. Maybe he hasn’t truly arrived yet. Maybe he still won’t complete the climb from anonymous walk-on to hearing his named called by Larry Reece in the public address booth on game days. But every walk-on knows when it happens. They’ve made an impression on someone important. Suddenly, there are possibilities.
“I knew I wasn’t a weight lifter. I knew I wasn’t the fastest guy. I knew I wasn’t the strongest guy. But I knew I could play football,” Seaton said in what could be the motto of walk-ons everywhere. “I just wanted to get out there.
“On the first day of pads,” he said of the moment in which he announced his arrival. “I got under Richetti Jones’ pads one play. It was the 13 reverse, and I knocked him back a little bit. I was supposed to step down and slide under him. I couldn’t do that, but I got my hand under his shoulder pad and pushed him down the line (of scrimmage). It was just a leverage thing. My steps were awful, my hands were awful. I had been a high school quarterback. I had no technique at all. It was just basically all luck. But I hit him as hard as I could every play, and I think that’s why they started working with me.
“No one knew who I was at this point, and it kind of turned a couple of heads. From that point on I gained a little respect. They started throwing me out there a little more with the ones (first team), and I know there were some people wondering who I was.”
Seaton was on the cusp of playing as a true freshman on OSU’s 2011 championship team, but his redshirt year was saved.
“I thought I was going to play against Arizona and my family came up for the game, but it didn’t work out,” he said. “The next week was that midnight game at Tulsa. In the first quarter they called my formation but there was a timeout. Todd Monken (former offensive coordinator) called down and said for them to get me out, we weren’t running that play anymore. Later he told me that it would have been stupid to use my redshirt for a formation we don’t use much.”
Thanks to that decision, Seaton is around for the Cowboys in 2015.
It took Lundblade a little longer to make an impression on the coaching staff, but his impact was the quickest among the trio.
“I always thought I could play at this level,” he said. “That’s why I was waiting out a scholarship. And then when I got here I really felt like the first couple of weeks of practice gave me confidence. I was going against two of the best defensive tackles in the league every day in Ofa Hautau and James Castleman.
“Coach (Eric) Henderson ran the offensive scout team, and he kept telling me the coaches were keeping their eyes on me,” he added. “Even Glenn Spencer (OSU’s defensive coordinator) kept telling me to work hard and my time would come. I think that was really the first time I knew I had made an impression was when I heard from coach Spencer.”
But despite the positive feedback from the coaches, Lundblade was told that he would redshirt during the 2014 season. He would follow the normal blueprint for an offensive lineman, who typically don’t begin to execute at a high level until their third year on campus.
One week at practice, Jarwin got to pretend he was a Heisman Trophy contender as he portrayed Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein as the scout team quarterback.
“I made a few plays I don’t think they expected me to make,” he said. “I made it through a few holes, and I started thinking I just might be able to make an impact here. I always thought, even as a little kid, that I wanted to play at a Division I school. I felt like if I worked hard enough I would eventually get the opportunity. And that week against Kansas State it was great just to get to make plays, even if it was on the scout team.”
Not long after his scout team exploits, Jarwin had his arrival moment. “Coach Gundy came up to me and said they were going to move me to tight end. That was a bit of reward and then I got to start traveling for the rest of the year. That was the light at the end of the tunnel.”
The Arrival
Although Jarwin was making plays on the scout team, he still had a long wait for the culmination of those childhood dreams. His first game at Oklahoma State was the 2012 season opener against Savannah State. It was the beginning of what would be a redshirt year for him, although he did make his first road trips with the team, which is not an insignificant development in the world of a walk-on.
In 2013, he in essence went through a second redshirt season. It was another year of practice and travel but no game time. A redshirt season is a tough time for scholarship and non-scholarship players alike. Two straight years of practice time without any game snaps is the epitome of the walk-on story and a big reason why most walk-ons don’t last four years.
But in 2014, Jarwin got his chance.
“My first career game was against Florida State,” he said. “I got a kickoff kicked to me. I remember a little bit of it. After a while I settled down.”
A couple of weeks later, in the Big 12 opener against Texas Tech, the walk-on from Tuttle entered the scoring column. He caught a 47-yard touchdown pass from Daxx Garman in the third quarter to extend OSU’s lead to two touchdowns.
“Yeah it was a great feeling,” he said. “I remember catching the ball and seeing nothing in front of me. I stumbled a bit thinking someone was going to be there so I lowered my shoulder and then I just kept going.”
He would end the season with five catches, including two against Texas and a 14-yarder in the Cactus Bowl win over Washington. And with the tight end returning to the OSU offense, his numbers figure to rise during the course of his career.
Of this particular trio of walk-ons, Seaton is the oldest and the most accomplished. He saw the field often in 2012, but OSU was rarely in a “jumbo” formation, which would have included a fullback and/or a tight end.
“I took the tight end reps, which might be just two or three a game, and I split fullback reps with Kye Staley,” he said.
The first offensive statistic of his career was a three-yard reception against West Virginia. Two weeks later he returned a kickoff 17 yards against Oklahoma. But his big moment came in the Heart of Dallas Bowl win over Purdue.
“It was something I wasn’t sure would ever happen.”
What happened was a 16-yard touchdown reception.
“Justin Horton played his entire career as a tight end and never scored a touchdown.
“We practiced that play a lot, and they never threw the ball to me one time,” Seaton added. “It always went to Kye out in the flat. I remember when I took off that the safety bit, and I might actually have a chance. Clint (Chelf) threw the pass, and I think I blacked out for a minute. I don’t remember catching it. But I do remember lining up for the extra point.”
Since that time, Seaton has become an important part of the offense. In 2014, his junior season, he caught 13 passes, including three for 51 yards in the win at Oklahoma and four for 40 yards against Washington in the bowl game. He set up Cowboy touchdowns against the Sooners and Huskies.
While Seaton and Jarwin had a slow but steady ascent up the depth chart, Lundblade jumped from anonymity to the starting lineup seemingly overnight.
“It was always my goal to play as true freshman,” Lundblade said. “But when they told me I was going to redshirt, I accepted the fact that they didn’t want me to play this year and that I had a lot of developing to do under coach Glass.”
But while Lundblade was taking his turn toiling on the scout team, the Cowboys were struggling up front and the OSU staff was constantly evaluating the roster. Following a close win at Kansas, Lundblade’s life changed.
“It was TCU week,” he said. “They brought me in on a Monday. Coach (Bob) Connelly texted me and asked me to come into the office. He had us in his office all the time so I didn’t think that much about it. He pulls me in and says they are going to play me this week.”
First thoughts?
“Whoa! It caught me off guard. I knew I was doing well and working hard, but I didn’t really think I was going to play in a game. I called my roommate to come and pick me up,” he added. “We were freaking out in the car. Then I called my dad, and he couldn’t believe it.
“It was a lot of stress. I had been on the scout team during KU week and so I had a lot of questions. I was in the office a lot.”
Lundblade split playing time with Paul Lewis at TCU and the two alternated at the position the rest of the season, including OSU’s two-game winning streak to end 2014.
“It was crazy,” Lundblade said of the 2104 stretch run. “I would guess the biggest crowd I played in front of in high school was 3,000. Our bench (at TCU) was right in front of their students so they were letting us have it the whole game. There was just so much going on and TV cameras and TV reporters. It was unlike anything I had experienced.”
Before And After
Even though Lundblade has been in Stillwater just over a year, he feels transformed.
“I’m not even the same person, mentally or physical, that I was just last year,” he said. “I was actually cleaning out my room the other day and found the playbook that I got when I first came to town. I saw all of my notes and my questions. It’s amazing to think how far I’ve come. The coaches have done a great job with that. I’ve grown a ton in a year.”
There are certainly easier ways to grow than by spending time as a walk-on, but those challenges make arriving on the other end of the spectrum that much sweeter.
“There were definitely hard times, and I would call home and my mom would tell me just to stick it out and that I would get my chance,” Jarwin said. “I think about that all the time. But at the same time I knew I had been blessed to even have this opportunity and now I laugh at what I was thinking before. I wouldn’t give this up for anything now. I’ve worked too hard and come too far.”
Leave it to the grizzly veteran, the senior fullback, to best describe the walk-on experience.
“I remember looking back at when I first got here and wondering what the hell I was doing. This is awful. Why am I doing this?” Seaton said. “But it gave me a work ethic and helped me with time management. Now I don’t think there’s anything I can’t accomplish.
“I think it was the best decision of my life.”
Two weeks into the 2015 fall camp, OSU head football coach Mike Gundy announced in a team meeting that Blake Jarwin and Brad Lundblade were receiving the ultimate goal for walk-ons. Both were being awarded scholarships. Jeremy Seaton was placed on scholarship in 2013.
