Meet Oklahoma State’s Most Effective Recruiting Weapon

If you’ve been following along this offseason, Oklahoma State is climbing the ranks in the Big 12 and making national noise with its 2017 recruiting class. They currently rank 27th on Rivals, 22nd on ESPN, and 21st on 247 Sports in football recruiting for next year. This comes as an uptick from recent years.

Check out the table below and see how the Cowboys have landed in each of Mike Gundy’s years in recruiting nationally since his first season as the head coach in 2005.

The rankings are from Rivals, the most conservative of the recruiting sites on OSU for this year’s class.

Oklahoma State is on track to finish with the second-ranked Big 12 class in 2017, which it has never done under Mike Gundy. After two years of mediocrity in recruiting (and high turnover within the assistant ranks in Stillwater), how are Gundy and Co. responding so well?

Enter Marcus Arroyo, the Cowboys’ 36- year-old running backs coach. The former San Jose State QB is entering his 2nd year in Stillwater, coming over after serving as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB coach and interim play caller in 2014 which was his first year in the NFL.

The personable and fiery Californian may be somewhat new to Stillwater, but helped call plays under former Oklahoma State OC Todd Monken at Southern Miss in 2013. Here’s what Monken said about Arroyo.

“He is a flat-out stud,” Monken told the Oklahoman. “He is an incredible recruiter. He is great with the players. He has been around a number of offenses. He is capable of running the offense, and yet shared when he first got here, in terms of understanding his initial role and not overstepping.”

From a player’s perspective, here is what his former QB at Wyoming, Austyn Carta-Samuels said about what Arroyo did after Wyoming beat Colorado State to make it to the New Mexico Bowl one year.

“Down near the end of the game he tackled me on the field,” said Carta-Samuels, told the Oklahoman. “We’re lying on the field together almost looking like we’re doing snow angels. That’s just the type of relationship that he builds with his players. I truly can say I haven’t had a better relationship with my position coach in my life.”

In Arroyo’s first season in Stillwater, OSU’s running game showed a marked improvement from the year before. His backs had 25 rushing touchdowns, a 28 percent increase from the year prior to his arrival, including just two fumbles in 354 all-purpose attempts.

But it’s on the offensive side of the ball in recruiting where Arroyo is really making his presence felt. Oklahoma State has landed an impressive collection of talent thus far, nationwide.

First, Arroyo helped lead the charge down to Fort Worth and came back with the dynamic Wallace twins at the end of March. Tylan (spurning interest from OU, Oregon, Missouri, Arizona State, Michigan, TCU and Wisconsin, amongst others) and Tracin (also received interest from Oklahoma and TCU, amongst others). Tylan is expected to be used as a WR, but will get touches all over the field as he matures in Stillwater. Tracin is listed as an ATH, but plays QB for South Hills High School and could play multiple positions, depending on the need.

In April, Marcus Arroyo played in integral part in landing 6’6 QB Jelani Woods from typically SEC territory in Ellenwood, GA, giving Oklahoma State one of the more intriguing QB prospects of the 2017 class.

In May, Arroyo went to work on his area of expertise, the backfield. Arroyo stayed in the Peach State to scoop up JD King from Fitzgerald, Georgia, a viable three-star back to complement the crown jewel of the 2017 class so far, Chuba Hubbard. Hubbard is a four-4 star RB from north of the border in Sherwood Park, Alberta. He turned down quite the list of suitors to be coached by Marcus Arroyo, Mike Yurcich, and Mike Gundy, including Miami, Auburn, California, Georgia, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas A&M, Tennessee, and others. The speedster mentioned Arroyo’s influence, as well as the track program at OSU, shortly after his commitment.

“Really, Oklahoma State is the right place,” the 6-1, 180-pound Hubbard told GoPokes.com. “It just felt like the right place and the coaches are great. I really get along with the running backs coach – coach (Marcus) Arroyo. I know that I can do everything in my dreams there, to play football and run track. My track coach talked to the (OSU) track coach and knows him a little bit. It is the right place to make my dreams come true.”

With Arroyo Oklahoma State looks to be in safe hands both on the field and the recruiting trail moving forward. The Cowboys will likely never be able to match Oklahoma in recruiting, but with the shocking fall of Art Briles and Baylor combined with the mediocrity of Charlie Strong at Texas thus far, OSU can fall right in line at the top of the Big 12 recruiting moving forward. Especially with the continuity Gundy is trying to create on his staff (i.e. keeping coaches for longer than a year).

Mike Gundy and his staff have always made the very most out of the talent they’ve obtained, which bodes very well now that Oklahoma State has found its recruiting weapon on offense.