STILLWATER — From the time they arrived at Oklahoma State together in the summer of 2017, Malcolm Rodriguez and Brock Martin had always kicked around the idea of joining the Cowboy wrestling team during football offseasons.

Rodriguez, a linebacker, and Martin, a defensive end, won five high school wrestling state championships between them before their college football careers began, but the suggestion that they’d join one of the nation’s elite wrestling programs was just a couple of kids being silly.

Wasn’t it?

“I’ve learned from those two that if it comes out of their mouths, you better take it as probably going to happen,” Shanna Rodriguez, Malcolm’s mother, told The Oklahoman. “It was just a matter of when.”