Oklahoma State football: 3 reasons Chuba Hubbard deserved Heisman invite

3. Carrying the load for OSU

Hubbard’s final stats for the 12-game regular season might have been even better, were it not for two untimely injuries to OSU’s two other offensive playmakers.

All-America wide receiver Tylan Wallace, who suffered a midseason ACL injury, was the team’s major deep threat. In the third-to-last game, OSU starting quarterback Spencer Sanders went out with a thumb injury and missed the remainder of the regular season.

Before injuries, Wallace had 53 catches for 903 yards through nine games. He finished as one of three finalists for the 2018 Biletnikoff Award and certainly seemed on track to be a favorite for the 2019 edition.

Sanders, a redshirt freshman, grew as quarterback before the thumb injury in his first season. Through ten games, he threw for more than 2,000 yards, rushed for more than 600 yards, and accounted for 18 total touchdowns. After two games with eight turnovers combined earlier in the season in losses to Texas Tech and Baylor, Sanders took much better care of the ball.

In the final two games without either Sanders or Wallace, against West Virginia and Oklahoma, Hubbard totaled 311 all-purpose yards and one touchdown with opposing defenses keying in on stopping him.