Oklahoma State has been rolling on the recruiting trail lately. They’ve locked down the No. 1 overall class for 2020 and after landing a commitment from Victor Voinovich a few weeks ago, and they look to be on pace for another top class for 2021.

This 2020 class for OSU is loaded. Top to bottom it’s the best class OSU has ever had since I’ve been covering them, and it might be the best of the John Smith era. On a national level, AJ Ferrari and Dustin Plott have both held the No. 1 spot in the class at times, Trevor Mastrogiovanni is a top-15 recruit who has a stacked resume, Jakason Burks is a former World Team member and multi-time Fargo finalist, and Luke Surber and Konner Doucet are both multi-time state champions and All-Americans who bring in impressive resumes on the national level that had the attention of recruiting outlets and Division I coaches outside of Oklahoma.

The interesting thing to me with this class is that I actually see three of the guys that haven’t been included in many of the national rankings as guys who will likely be role players in the OSU lineup moving forward and big assets to the roster. 

So here I thought I’d take a dive in to look at those three and how they could factor in for the Cowboys moving forward.

Daniel Jezik | Coal City, Illinois

On Signing Day, the Cowboys added a somewhat unexpected and late commitment that perked the ears of a lot of OK State fans. Jezik didn’t officially announce his commitment until the day of Signing Day, but even with all the hype surrounding this stellar class OSU was signing, this addition was one that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Jezik has not been included on the Flo big board until the last time it was updated at the end of March. Here he came in at #100. When people do national rankings for wrestling they typically have to rank guys based on their performance at the bigger national tournaments. Fargo, Super 32, Ironman, etc. If a wrestler plays other sports, it’s tough for them to go and wrestle in any of those tournaments. So ultimately, they often get overlooked.

Jezik is one of those examples. He’s a multi-sport athlete who wrestled and played football and baseball. In fact, he was one of the best running backs in the state of Illinois last year. He was a two-time state champ and as a sophomore finished as a runner-up behind current Illinois stand-out Danny Braunagel.

Everything about this kid screams “underrated,” “under the radar,” “overlooked,” all those types of terms to me. We’ve seen it time and time again with multi-sport athletes after they move to college and to one sport. You just get that feeling that an athlete as good as Jezik, once he makes the move to one sport, could really blossom and take off.

One thing to follow will be his size fit. Based on the buzz I’ve heard, it sounds as though AJ Ferrari will go 197 and Dustin Plott is likely to go 174, at least next season. If that’s where they hold for their career, 184 will open up when Anthony Montalvo graduates in a few years. After taking a few years to develop, Jezik could step in after Montalvo and be “the guy” at 184 for OSU.

Elise Brown Ton | Allen, Texas

Brown Ton was the most recent pickup for the Cowboys for the 2020 class. He committed on April 11 and added even more firepower to an already incredible recruiting class for OSU. 

Similar to Jezik, Brown Ton was a two-time state champ with a final’s loss as a sophomore to a current DI wrestler. For Brown Ton it was current Oklahoma State freshman and soon-to-be teammate Daniel Manibog. 

Brown Ton is one that Oklahoma State fans have followed closely. He’s always had a lot of OSU ties and the Cowboys have been recruiting him for a bit. He was high school teammates with Conner Wilson and fellow 2020 commit AJ Ferrari. So fans that follow recruiting closely were just watching and waiting to see what would happen as his commitment came so late. Nebraska and Little Rock both made their push, but OSU held on.

Brown Ton split the season at 160 and 170. He competed most of the year at 170 then dropped to 160 for the state tournament. This is ideal for OSU, because with all of the talent they have coming in the next two seasons, there seemed like there could be a gap left at 165. Dustin Plott and Luke Surber have put on a little size and look as though they may be 174-184. If that’s the case then Brown Ton could be a really crucial piece as he may be the only 165 out of these two 2020-21 classes.

Brown Ton’s biggest tournament win was at Reno where he knocked off Wyoming commit Gage Hockett in the finals. He did this as an undersized 170 that went on to later finish the season at 160. He’s similar to Ferrari and is a bit of a weight room/workout junkie who really embraces that side of things. He could wind up as a very important piece of the lineup for OSU and the tools seem to be there for him to do it.

Alex Yokubaitis | Lake Charles, LA

Yokubaitis is a four-time Louisiana state champ who really just dominated his way to state titles each and every year there.

He was an NHSCA All-American in 2018, but hasn’t really seemed to get on any national radars except for OSU’s. That’s something that happens a lot with kids that come out of nontraditional wrestling states that don’t hit many of the big national tournaments. He’s a smart kid — when John Smith has talked about this recruiting class, he’s praised Yokubaitis for his grades and ACT scores that have done a lot to help him and OSU with scholarship money that made it easier to get him to Stillwater.

With Jakason Burks and Trevor Mastrogiovanni, the Cowboys have two big-name lightweights that most expect to anchor the next few years there. I think Burks could be a career 125 and Mastro could go either ‘33 or ‘41. 

But you could see a lot of scenarios where Yokubaitis could be called upon. If Burks goes up to 33 at any point, If Mastro finds himself and ‘41 and Yokubaitis gets inserted at ‘33, if injuries happen, this could all result in Yokubaitis being called on. And you could reasonably see him jumping levels when the routine competition steps up a bit from what he’s been seeing in a non-traditional wrestling state. It happened with Daniel Cormier out of Louisiana and could certainly happen here.

In conclusion, it’s no secret that recruits with names and resumes like Daton Fix are the ones who usually carry a program, and Dustin Plott, AJ Ferrari, and others coming in this year are the guys most expected to do that. But the Preston Weigels and Nolan Boyds of the world, who no one really talked about directly out of high school, can end up being crucial pieces of your program. And I really believe that these three could be under-the-radar assets who end up being huge for OSU in the future.

Seth Duckworth is a Stillwater-based writer who covers Oklahoma State University wrestling for Pistols Firing Blog, the best OSU news and community site on the internet. Follow Seth on Twitter.