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STILLWATER — When LD Brown met his new running backs coach, he had a natural bit of skepticism.
Brown had just arrived at Oklahoma State for his freshman season when he was introduced to running backs coach John Wozniak, who had been hired to replace Marcus Arroyo — the coach who recruited Brown out of DeSoto, Texas.
“What am I walking into?” Brown asked himself. “Who is he? He didn’t recruit me. I don’t know him.”
But Wozniak settled Brown’s concerns quickly in the summer of 2017.
“He was a guy who listened,” Brown recently told The Oklahoman. “It was a genuine conversation when you had a conversation with him, whether it was ball or it was life.
“It was very easy to trust him early on, because he didn’t really care about the player, it was more about the person.”
More: Oklahoma State football faces uncertainty prepping for a Texas A&M team in roster upheaval
John Wozniak has coached three former OSU running backs who are currently in the NFL, and Ollie Gordon II seems to be on that track as well.
Seven seasons later, Wozniak has only strengthened his status as a highly respected piece of the Oklahoma State coaching staff.
He recruited and developed the Cowboys’ first Doak Walker Award winner, Ollie Gordon II, who goes into the Texas Bowl looking to extend his lead as the nation’s top rusher.
Twentieth-ranked Oklahoma State faces Texas A&M at 8 p.m. Wednesday at NRG Stadium in Houston, with Gordon sitting on 1,614 rushing yards for the season.
Only five running backs in OSU history have reached the 1,700-yard mark, and if Gordon gets there, Wozniak will have coached two of them, with Chuba Hubbard being the other.
“RBU, baby,” the always excitable Brown said. “Look at all the guys Woz coached that are in the League.”
That list currently includes Hubbard, Justice Hill and Jaylen Warren,…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ollie-gordon-ld-brown-explain-113025679.html
Author : The Oklahoman
Publish date : 2023-12-24 11:30:25
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