Kasey Dunn has a story that illustrates how having Justin Blackmon on his team was akin to having a cheat code.
 
Oklahoma State faced a fourth down in the Fiesta Bowl against Stanford, with a play designed to hit Blackmon on a slant. Head coach Mike Gundy wanted to call a timeout when he saw the Cardinal lined up in Cover 2. Offensive coordinator Todd Monken overruled his boss, saying the advantage Blackmon gave the Cowboys was too strong to ignore.
Sure enough, the play went on, Blackmon made the catch, the Pokes scored a few plays later and they ended up winning the game to punctuate a 12-1 season.
 
"The guy is just unbelievable," said Dunn, who was Oklahoma State's receivers coach at the time and is now its offensive coordinator. "Just the confidence that we had in throwing him the ball in even the worst of looks, he just would find a way to get open and make a play."
 
Blackmon did all that and more, and it has now landed him in the College Football Hall of Fame. He becomes the eighth member of Oklahoma State's program to make the Hall, and the first player from the Gundy coaching era to accomplish the feat.
 
In many ways, Blackmon changed the Pokes' program, which had not posted a double-digit win season in 22 years before his squad broke through in 2010 with an 11-2 mark. They bested it with that Fiesta Bowl season one year later, finishing No. 3 in the AP poll in 2011.
 
Oklahoma State has posted six 10-win seasons since then, with the school becoming synonymous with elite wide receiver play, as Blackmon followed Dez Bryant, and as stars such as James Washington, Tylan Wallace, Josh Stewart and Marcell Ateman have continued the tradition of standout pass-catchers.
 
"Obviously we were setting all kinds of passing records and certainly got pushed on to the national scene with some of the things that we were doing offensively," Dunn said. "That's the expectation that was set. It was a really high bar that those guys put in place, and we saw a lot of benefits from it in recruiting. We were able to go out and get some big-time quarterbacks and receivers."
 
Blackmon became just the second player to win the Biletnikoff Award twice, joining Michael Crabtree. He posted an NCAA sophomore record of 1,782 receiving yards in 2010 on 111 catches, 20 of which went for touchdowns. He had 122 receptions in 2011, posting 1,522 yards and 18 touchdown receptions.
 
He earned both Alamo Bowl and Fiesta Bowl MVP honors, closing his career with eight catches for 186 yards and three touchdowns in the win over Stanford.
 
"It's the place where I made most of my close relationships that I still hold to this day," Blackmon told the school website upon his 2023 introduction into OSU's athletics Hall of Honor. "The best times of my life have been on this campus and being around these people." 
 
When Blackmon arrived in Stillwater, he was far from a finished product. He was lightly recruited and ended up redshirting his first year. Pairing his relentless desire to succeed with the tutelage of strength coach Rob Glass, Blackmon blossomed into the best receiver in the country by 2010.
 
"We have this team competition thing where he was always kicking people out so he could do the drill himself, even though he just did one before," Dunn said. "It's like a merry go-round of little team competitions. It's a sled push on one and a tug of war on another and some sort of 5-10-5 drill.
 
"We'd break the team up into about eight or nine teams; you're supposed to let everybody on your team compete. But not him. So we had to put in a rule to make sure he didn't do that anymore."
 
Blackmon exited Oklahoma State as the only two-time unanimous All-American in school history. He posted 14 straight games with at least 100 receiving yards and one touchdown. He had six single-season school records.
 
Not surprisingly, the Jaguars drafted Blackmon fifth overall in 2012, making him the highest pick of the Gundy era.
 
"He's the ultimate competitor," Dunn said. "Trust me, I've been around this thing for a while, and that's one thing that I preach all the time is competing, and he took it to a whole new level. The guy is just unreal. He wants to win every single drill. He's just that guy, and I don't know if I've seen anything like him since I've been there."
 
JUSTIN BLACKMON: UP CLOSE
 

• Claimed unanimous First Team All-American honors twice and one of only two players ever to win the Biletnikoff Award twice.
• Holds the NCAA record with 14-straight games with at least 100 receiving yards and 14-straight games with at least 100 receiving yards and a touchdown.  
• Amassed career totals of 253 receptions for 3,564 receiving yards and 42 touchdowns.
• Played for head coach Mike Gundy.
• Becomes the sixth Oklahoma State player to enter the Hall.