Oklahoma State announced on Thursday that it will induct Barry Sanders into its Ring of Honor inside Boone Pickens Stadium during the Cowboys’ game against TCU on Nov. 13.
The school also said a sculptor is working on a statue of Sanders that will honor him outside the stadium, a first for any OSU player.
Sanders joins former Oklahoma State teammate Thurman Thomas, who was inducted last year, as the second member of the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor.
In his only season as a full-time starter at OSU after backing up Thomas for two seasons, Sanders had one of the most dominant seasons in college football history in 1988, when he won the Heisman Trophy and was a unanimous All-American. He ran for 2,850 yards — an average of 237.5 per game — had four 300-yard games and scored 44 touchdowns, breaking 34 NCAA records.
“If he were playing in today’s offenses, he very well could’ve rushed for 4,000 yards, easy,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, who was the starting QB on that team, told ESPN in 2018. “Look at the number of plays that we have on offense today compared to back then. We huddled up, we were slow. And the majority of the games, very seldom was he ever touching the field in the fourth quarter, because we were blowing teams out.”
Sanders bypassed his senior year and entered the NFL draft, where he was selected No. 3 overall by the Detroit Lions in 1989. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004 after rushing for 15,269 yards in 10 NFL seasons.
Sanders’ No. 21 at Oklahoma State is one of four numbers not in use by the Cowboys.