Getting to know U(niversities): Oklahoma State University

A new conference home for TCU means that there are a whole host of new teams to be aware of. Some of them we are well acquainted with, others we've managed to face only once, but for all of them it's a good time to get reacquainted and maybe learn a new thing or two about our new and old conference mates. For that, Frogs O' War is proud to present the facts, stats and trivia of our big 12 brethren. Make the jump if you will, and see what there is to be seen about the defending Big 12 Champions- Oklahoma State University.

Tale of the Tape: Oklahoma State University (Formerly Oklahoma A&M)

Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma

Stadium: Boone Pickens Stadium (Named for the most famous booster in college football, Okie State Sugar Daddy Boone Pickens)

Overall Record: 531-523-47. Last years magical season took the Cowboys over .500 all-time and gave them some wiggle room the next few seasons.

Championships: Ten conference championships (Eight Missouri Valley championships, one Big Eight championship, one Big 12 championship) .

Conference History: Independent from 1901-1914, joined the Southwest conference from 1915-1924, joined the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association/Missouri Valley Conference from 1925-1956, went independent for 1957 and 1958 before joining the Big Eight (1959-1998), founding member of the Big 12 (1999-present).

Traditions: Being really really good at wrestling- they have thirty four(!) team national championships in wrestling. They also do the fairly universal team walk and increasingly common leap into the stands post touchdown (they should call it the Pickens Plunge). However their mascot story is fairly interesting, and one can find out about Pistol Pete here.

Rivals: Oklahoma Sooners in the Bedlam rivalry and the Tulsa golden hurricanes. The intensity of the Bedlam series is high, but the Cowboys just haven't gotten it done performance wise- the Sooners lead the series 82-17-7. The problem is that Oklahoma State has trouble (like everyone not Texas, really) beating Oklahoma when they're really good (Oklahoma State has beaten 9+ win OU teams four times in their history) and OU happens to be that level of good with annoying frequency. The Tulsa series is much closer, with the Cowboys leading 40-27-5, however the Golden Hurricanes haven't made things too competitive of late, winning two games since 1991.

You may remember them from such TCU games as: TCU has played Oklahoma State intermittently, with four and six game series being mixed in with long breaks apart. The Frogs trail the Cowboys in the overall series at 11-9-2, but have won three of the last four (they were even one of our two victories in the awful 1992 season). Let's hope that we can even up the series really quickly in our Big 12 life.

Have they been looking at other conferences?: Much like Texas Tech, Oklahoma State has been passive but safe in the conference realignment kerfuffle. Thanks to their attachment to the Oklahoma Sooners they were safely nestled in the Pac 16 twice before being pulled back to the warm embrace of the Big 12. In the future they'll still likely stick with the Sooners, so they can be assured of a good conference home.

What else is "need to know" about Oklahoma State University?: Thirty Four national championships in wrestling is more than any school has in any sport- so take that Notre Dame Football/Kentucky Basketball, the most dominant program in college sports lives in Stillwater. Incredibly rich fellow Boone Pickens who bankrolls pretty much everything in Oklahoma State athletics originally wanted to go to Texas A&M- but they misplaced his application and he ended up at Oklahoma A&M instead. Imagine what A&M could have been in the 2000s if they had had Pickens coin in hand all that time... Ah the shattered dreams of a hundred thousand aggies.