Jul. 17—ARLINGTON, Texas — Nestled into a folding chair on the northern sideline of AT&T Stadium, Oklahoma State football offensive lineman Preston Wilson sat there an entirely different person on Wednesday afternoon than he was eight months ago.

Then, he and the Cowboys were settling into the aftermath of a disappointing end to a campaign that featured the least-productive rushing offense in Mike Gundy’s 18 seasons at the helm of the program.

Now, Wilson is ready to play a large part in restoring OSU’s run game to where it once was, where it had been for the handful of years prior to 2022. And it started with everyone, Wilson included, looking in the mirror.

“That was the first step, was dissecting the problems from last year, figure out where our issues were,” Wilson said at Big 12 Media Days on Wednesday afternoon. “Ultimately, guys had to do self-evaluations, and we had to do evaluations on each other.”

But why exactly did the Cowboys have to do that? The run game wasn’t that bad a season ago, right?

Wrong. Oklahoma State finished 97th out of 131 FBS schools for rushing yards per game (125.6) in 2022, and it was even worse when it came to yards per carry (3.4), a category in which the Pokes were 109th. Both of those figures were the worst under Gundy, with the only seasons coming close being 2015 (126.8 YPG, 3.6 YPC) and 2014 (136.6 YPG, 3.5 YPC).

More than 12 percent of the Cowboys’ designed run plays in 2022 had a blown blocking assignment, according to Sports Info Solutions. That ranked 62nd among 69 Power Five teams, including the Big 12 Conference’s four newcomers in BYU, UCF, Houston and Cincinnati.

“Most of what we have to get accomplished on offense is rushing the ball effectively enough to balance who we are,” Gundy said ahead of OSU’s eventual win over Texas in October. “If we can rush the ball a little bit better, and if we can balance up and avoid being one-dimensional, it makes us a better team.”

Gundy and Co. have switched things up this offseason to address the issue.

They’re transitioning away from a zone scheme and returning to more of a gap-based rushing attack, similar to the ones Gundy led when he was playing at OSU with Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas in the backfield. It’s a scheme that requires less thinking and a heavy dose of dominance at the line of scrimmage.

They landed a pair of transfers in Texas State’s Dalton Cooper — likely an immediate starter — and UNLV’s Noah McKinney. And they added a veteran running back in Michigan State transfer Elijah Collins, who will join a group already holding Jaden Nixon and Ollie Gordon.

But nobody — nobody — can control injuries, the catalyst behind most of the rushing woes. The Cowboys had eight different offensive linemen play in at least four games in 2022. Only two of them played in all 13.

“A lot of people don’t see it, we face little aches and strains and pains all the time,” said Wilson, who will be a redshirt senior this fall. “All anybody ever sees is the big ones, but we’re working behind the scenes with the athletic trainers.”

For Wilson, an offseason filled with recovery has included work both spiritually and physically. He rekindled his faith, a reborn relationship that, Wilson said, “got my life back on track.” That was one of the biggest things the veteran lineman took away from his self-evaluations.

Wilson has put a lot of wear and tear on his body throughout his 34 games in three years at OSU. That isn’t easy at 6-foot-5, 295 pounds. After dealing with a nagging injury throughout the 2022 season, he received stem-cell injections through the bone marrow in his hip in Trophy Club, Texas.

Oh, and he picked up yoga based on a recommendation from Rob Glass, OSU’s longtime strength and conditioning expert who’s the highest-paid in the country at his position.

“My body’s feeling great. Ultimately, it’s the best it’s ever been,” Wilson said. “(Yoga is) not necessarily the most fun thing. But once you can find things that you can better your craft at and do little things that not everybody’s going to wanna do, you separate yourself.”

Wilson could’ve elected to hit the transfer portal in the winter. He also could’ve chosen to do it during the 15-day window in April. Some did, even.

Not him, though. He’s been a part of some of the program’s best offenses since arriving in Stillwater as a true freshman in 2019. Now, Wilson is hoping to replicate those in 2023.

“I’m really excited to see how we’re going to implement our new runs and new designs and new plays this season,” Wilson said. “It’s gonna be used to our advantage, and you should see a lot of great things out of the run game this year, especially from an O-line standpoint.”