Oklahoma State's 2025 Expectations Shouldn't be Based on 2024

The Cowboys will have a chance to blaze their own trail next season.

With the 2025 season only a few weeks away, there is no shortage of speculation about what the team might look like next season. While training camp just started and position battles will be won and lost in the coming days, there are still plenty of reasons to be excited about what this next chapter of Oklahoma State football might look like.

Considering how close the season is, previews for every team from every outlet will soon be circulating. After winning only three games last season, it’s quite common to see the Pokes be viewed as a bottom-tier team in the Big 12 that will struggle to make a bowl game.

Of course, all of those predictions could easily come true. However, those predictions also seem to factor in everything that happened last season a bit too much.

Sure, it’s fair to question how the Cowboys will bounce back. Still, it’s not exactly fair to the players in Stillwater for this season to already get judged by what happened when a large portion of them weren’t even on the team yet.

This offseason has been about change for OSU. That change has come through the transfer portal and through numerous coaching staff moves.

Even in spots like the secondary, where the Cowboys are set to bring back some starters from last season, it’s unfair to project how 2025 might look based on 2024. Some of the players might be the same and have essentially the same role, but how they get used under Todd Grantham is still likely to yield much different results than Bryan Nardo’s system.

Of course, different doesn’t necessarily mean better or worse. The overall production could look similar, but how the team gets there will be different.

Predicting the Cowboys’ season is nearly impossible, and it’s human nature to try and project what 2025 might look like based on 2024. However, OSU is in a unique position.

Only a few key players from 2024 remain, and with so many newcomers on the field and on the sidelines, it’d be a mistake to assume anything that happened last season could help predict the next few months in Stillwater.