Is it a First, the First Player to have played on both sides of Bedlam?

Obi Obialo started at Oklahoma State as a walk-on and now he is back in Oklahoma playing for the Sooners as a grad transfer.

STILLWATER -- I got home from a Super Bowl party and the first text I see on my phone is from Bill Haisten, friend and sports columnist from The Tulsa World asking me, "Are you aware of anybody that played football at both Oklahoma State and OU?"

I thought for a minute and then text back, "I am not."

Then Haisten sent me a link to an old story in The Tulsa World from before the 2016 season featuring walk-on Obi Obialo of Coppell, Texas. Obialo was a receiver that walked-on and reported that summer and the 6-3 and close to 200-pounds Obialo made such an impression in fall camp that head coach Mike Gundy listed him as one of the four freshmen that were likely to play that season. 

He did play. Obialo caught two passes for 11-yards and actually played in four games. The rule wasn't in place at the time, but with today's four-game red-shirt rule he would have been able to come back the next season as a red-shirt freshman. Instead, he did not come back at all. The out-of-state tuition at the time, $11,221.50 per semester, was not going to be relieved as Obialo was hoping. He thought he had done enough to earn a scholarship playing on that Alamo Bowl team that finished 10-3. 

Obialo transferred to Marshall, as in the "We are Marshall" Thundering Herd. In his first season there in 2017, Obialo finished with 19 receptions for 238 yards and a 12.5-yard per catch average. 

In his junior season in 2018 he led the team in both receptions and receiving yards with 42 receptions for 505 yards and four touchdowns. Obialo caught four passes for 32 yards in the Gasparilla Bowl against South Florida.

Back to that freshman season at Oklahoma State. Those four games counted as a year, but as a senior this season Obialo stopped at four games with 18 receptions for 244-yards. He was now able to transfer and finish his career somewhere else with degree in hand. That somewhere else is going to be Oklahoma. 

The interesting thing is that just last week, I mentioned that he might be somebody Oklahoma State would be interested in taking off the portal. Instead he will be a Sooner and may become the first player, for sure in the modern era, that will have played on the field as both a Cowboy and a Sooner.