Freshman Evers Ready to Throw on the OSU Helmet

When incoming freshman Brendon Evers gets to summer camp in early June for his report date, he will put on colors he didn’t expect to wear.

“My family was actually Oklahoma season ticket holders for the longest time,” Evers Goldberg Pistols Firing. “I grew up a long time thinking I was gonna have ‘OU’ on my helmet.”

Evers, a defensive tackle from Bixby, Okla., said when he got to Stillwater for his official visit, the sincerity won him over. There was no one else to consider, and that’s what he said he will remember most about his whole recruitment.

“I won’t forget how genuine Oklahoma State was to me,” he said. “How true to their word they were and how they didn’t really sugarcoat much of anything.”

Defensive line coach Joe Bob Clements was instrumental in swinging Evers, he said. Something Clements told him early in the process stuck in his heart throughout the months, Evers said.

“Remember what got you here,” Clements told him. “Remember your values and what you want in a school.”

Ever said he had a bunch of other schools that he could have gone to, including OU, but none save OSU felt like a fit.

He joins a group of bona fide Oklahomans with safety Malcolm Rodriguez, cowboy back Baron Odom and defensive end Brock Martin, his best friend. Of the four recruits in the Oklahoma State class of 2017, three of them are from cities with populations of fewer than 10,000 people.

Bixby, though close to Tulsa, isn’t necessarily within earshot of downtown and has a population hovering about 30,000. A lot of that has to do with why many of those guys, including Evers, talk on a regular basis.

“(We) talk about once a day usually,” Evers said. “We got each other on about every social media you can think of. … It’s definitely pretty cool to have guys from the state that are all elite players on their own teams come and try to contribute something to the state school.”

Much like the majority of Oklahoma-grown talent, defensive tackles aren’t the high profile signings. Evers wasn’t the prom king at Bixby. He wasn’t nominated. But he said he is working out at least once every day to be “at par or ahead” of everyone else.

He wants to squat more than 700 pounds, bench over 350 and work on his explosiveness.

“I want to work on how fast I get out of my stance, my speed, shoot my hands faster, getting off blocks and extending faster,” Evers said. “That’s been kinda the key points.”

Although the numbers increase as the days until reporting day decrease, Evers said he isn’t trying to get too amped. It’s still hard though.

“It’s no secret; this year, OSU’s gonna be really good,” Evers said. “And I just wanna go in and be a part of that elite fraternity that so many guys have been a part of. I’ll strive to some day be like Vincent Taylor and the guys who came before him.”