Senior walk-on Cole McKnight ready for final game at home
STILLWATER — When Cole McKnight’s name is announced during Senior Day activities Saturday morning at Boone Pickens Stadium, the vast majority of Oklahoma State fans will have the same reaction.
“Who?”
Of course, a hard-core group of fans from Cushing will need no introduction to McKnight, a fifthyear senior who wears No. 25 for the Cowboys.
So for everyone else, here’s a little bit about McKnight.
He’s a 5-foot-11, 180pound receiver who in four seasons has played in two games, both at the end of blowouts against Saturday’s opponent, Kansas.
Last season, he served as the team’s backup holder for field goals.
He has never recorded an official statistic.
And he’s living his dream.
When he left Cushing to come to Oklahoma State, he wanted to get an education and play football for the Cowboys.
On the academic side of things, the school welcomed him. He’s a nutritional sciences major.
Football wasn’t so simple. He was cut from walk-on tryouts — twice.
He finally made the team in the fall of his second year on campus.
“It was always something I knew I was gonna keep grinding for and keep trying to achieve,” McKnight said. “I wasn’t going to let myself down. It can be disheartening, but you’ve got to pick yourself up.
“It’s been an honor ever since, just to be here. It’s a dream come true.”
McKnight has two games left in his Cowboy career, starting with Saturday’s 11 a.m. kickoff against Kansas.
Then he’ll have the bowl game, which will provide 15 more practices wearing another team’s colors — because that’s what scout team players do. Every week, they get outfitted in the color of the upcoming opponent and replicate the offense for the starters on the other side of the ball.
“He’s just an all-around good guy,” OSU receiver Marcell Ateman said. “He comes in, works hard, he’s a good person off the field. You know he’s gonna do whatever it takes. He doesn’t have the opportunity to maybe do some things, but he contributes in other ways.”
For those who knew him when he was in high school in Cushing, nothing that McKnight is doing is a surprise.
He was a standout receiver and defensive back who played on every special teams unit for the Tigers. A leader and a motivator who always put the team first.
At OSU, he’s not a star or a leader, but the team still comes first. And a college program can’t survive without players like McKnight.
“He literally will do anything that the team needs,” said Cushing coach Barrett Shupe, who coached McKnight his last two years of high school. “You can’t find a kid who is more deserving to walk out there on Saturday afternoon.
“To me, he’s the model of bettering yourself and becoming the best person you can be, day-in and day-out.”
Occasionally, McKnight comes by to visit with the players at Cushing, and each spring, Shupe attends an OSU coaches’ clinic that allows him the opportunity to interact with McKnight on the field.
“I love getting to be around Cole that day,” Shupe said. “He’s really the kid that we’re all striving to coach. He works to get himself better and he makes his teammates better.
“He truly loves the game. He loves working at the game to get better, and he loves Oklahoma State.”
Most walk-on players see their career go one of three directions. Some work their way into the lineup and eventually earn a scholarship. Others leave in pursuit of playing time at a lower level. Still more walk away from football and go on with life as college students.
Rare is the walk-on who remains a walk-on without the payoff of playing time.
“It’s not always easy, but everybody’s going through the same thing,” McKnight said. “I’ve always taken pride in doing whatever’s asked of me or whatever the team needs, whether it’s taking notes for coach (Kasey) Dunn on the sideline, running a route during practice or blocking — I’m just happy to be here. If that’s what’s asked of me, that’s what I’m happy to do.”
McKnight isn’t scoring touchdowns or making highlight-reel plays like Ateman, James Washington or Chris Lacy. But he’ll end his career knowing that he represented both his hometown and the college football team he loves with pride and respect.
In the middle of his fifth year as an OSU student and fourth season as a player, McKnight has one more glorious game day to step onto the field at Boone Pickens Stadium.
“It’s crazy. It really does fly by,” he said. “I’ll just take it in one last time, soak it in and be happy to be out there with my teammates.”