What Oklahoma State Football Captain Selections Says About This Season

The Oklahoma State Cowboys are less than a week away from their season opener against Tulsa. They now have their captains selected.

The Cowboys selected seven captains for the season going into Saturday’s game, which is set for 2:45 p.m. at H.A. Chapman Stadium. For new head coach Eric Morris, it will be his first game on the sideline. For the roster, it will be a brand-new world as there are 92 new players on the roster and only 25 returning players from a year ago. Only those 25 know the sting of last year’s loss to Tulsa.

This year’s captains are quarterback Drew Mestemaker, punter Lachie Pozzobon, safety Quinton Hammonds, running back Caleb Hawkins, offensive lineman Jacob Sexton, linebacker Ethan Wesloski and defensive end Jaleel Johnson.

Here are two takeaways from the list.

The Takeaways of Oklahoma State’s Captains

Your 2026 Cowboy Football Captains 🤠#GoPokes pic.twitter.com/xVdMNFcztF
— OSU Cowboy Football (@CowboyFB) August 29, 2026

The first is easy — six of the seven players selected as captains are new to the program. With 92 new players there wasn’t much for those new players to look at after a 1-11 season, which included a coaching change and a roster exodus.

Transfers being selected as six of the seven new captains is telling of how the team was able to build chemistry and camaraderie the past several months, most notably in the crucible of fall camp the past month. Four of the players were at North Texas last year with Morris — Mestemaker, Hawkins, Wesloski and Hammonds. There are nearly 20 UNT players on the roster.

But players typically vote on captains and there aren’t enough former Mean Green players on the roster to carry the vote. So that quartet had to earn everyone’s trust and respect over the past eight months. It appears they have.

Sexton played at Oklahoma last year. Pozzobon, who is playing just his second year of American football after a year at Stephen F. Austin, did the same.

The other takeaway is that there is respect for the 25 players that stayed with the program, most notably Johnson, the fifth-year end who should be listed as a starter when the depth chart comes out later this week. Morris has praised Johnson often this offseason and believes the end — who has struggled at times to get playing time — can be a force in his pass rush.

It would have been easy for the 92 new players to gravitate away from the 25 that stayed behind. Johnson’s selection is a nod to those who stayed, but also an expression of how he’s impressed the new players and bonded with them this offseason.

It was an offseason like no other in Stillwater, and the list of captains reflects that. It could also reflect an improvement in how the Cowboys play in 2026.

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