Lundblade proved a point to everyone
Brad Lundblade believed he was a big-time college football player, and he proved it to Oklahoma State coaches.
STILLWATER — Having just been given the biggest news of his college football career, Oklahoma State’s Brad Lundblade wanted only to do one thing.
Call his mother. However, the moment that his meeting with coach Mike Gundy had ended — the meeting in which Gundy had told the walk-on offensive lineman from Argyle, Texas, that he’d been awarded a scholarship — Lundblade had to immediately report to practice.
As soon as practice concluded, he zipped into the locker room and grabbed his phone.
“I was so excited,” Lundblade said. “I pull out my phone and I have a million texts and like four missed calls from my mom.”
News of Lundblade’s scholarship had hit social media and spread like crazy.
“I was like, ‘Well, I guess they found out,’” Lundblade said with the trademark smile that seems to only leave his face when it’s hidden behind a face mask. “I didn’t get the satisfaction of calling them, but it was definitely a cool moment.”
Yet that moment wasn’t the peak of Lundblade’s OSU career, which is nearing its end with Senior Day at 11 a.m. Saturday against Kansas at Boone Pickens Stadium.
The Cowboys will salute nearly two dozen seniors in their final home game, but it’s hard to find one who started as quietly and finished as strongly as Lundblade’s.
Lundblade was rated by Rivals.com as a twostar recruit in the class of 2014. He had some lower Division I offers, with programs like Wake Forest and Tulsa topping the list, along with SMU and North Texas, schools his parents attended, respectively.
But he believed he was a big-time college football player, and Oklahoma State began recruiting him.
“Whenever I made my first visit here, I fell in love with it,” Lundblade said. “I was hoping for an offer, but it never came around.
“My parents brought
up the idea of me walking on. I didn’t want to do it. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in myself, but I didn’t want to put them in that financial situation.”
They told their son to chase his dream.
He arrived at OSU for the fall of 2014, and despite being a walk-on who wasn’t as big or as fast as some of those around him, he worked his way into the rotation by the middle of the season.
“We had missed on not only talent, but on character on linemen we recruited,” Gundy said. “We washed out, like, six guys, and Brad ends up starting.”
Going into his sophomore year, Lundblade was the top returning center the Cowboys had.
“We tried to get him beat out every spring,” Gundy said.
“We’d look at it and say, ‘OK, somebody’s gotta beat Lundblade out.’ And it never happened.”
Lundblade never let himself get too comfortable in the job, either.
“I knew even if I did play, they were probably gonna recruit guys who were bigger and stronger than me,” he said.
“Every single year, they’ve tried to, and fortunately, I’ve been able to play with that chip on my shoulder and win that battle every single year.”
That fateful meeting with Gundy to be put on scholarship came in August of 2015, and Lundblade didn’t miss a start the next two seasons. He only missed two this year after getting hurt against Texas Tech.
One of the games he missed was at Texas, when it became quite evident just how irreplaceable the player who was a recruiting afterthought had become.
Johnny Wilson played well in Lundblade’s absence, but the offensive line was lacking the continuity Lundblade had long provided.
“He’s been laserfocused from the time he got here,” quarterback Mason Rudolph said. “He knows the game inside and out. He’s a high footballIQ guy and he’s been a great leader for us.
“He was a very underrecruited guy and came in with a chip on his shoulder, and wanted to prove people wrong. We had an injury and he took the job and never gave it back.”
Of course, Lundblade’s list of academic achievements surpass all that he’s accomplished on the field, with All-Big 12 and AllAmerica honors.
He’s a finalist for the William V. Campbell Award, nicknamed college football’s Heisman Trophy for academics, recognizing “the absolute best in the country for his academic success, football performance and exemplary community leadership.” The winner will be announced Dec. 5.
Lundblade will leave OSU with a business degree in marketing and management, but he’s not immediately walking away from football when he pulls off his Cowboy jersey for the last time.
He wants to see if he can work his way onto an NFL roster, just like he did at OSU.
“I graduate in December and plan on doing a pro day in the spring,” he said. “I’m gonna give it my best shot and see what happens.”