ROSEBURG – One month after having his college plans pulled out from underneath him, Roseburg senior wrestler Austin Harris has found a future home at Oklahoma State University.

Harris signed his college commitment papers on Tuesday in the Roseburg High School college and career center with friends and family in attendance, but the journey to get to that moment was an arduous one. The senior had planned to sign with Boise State wrestling back on April 19, but the Broncos announced the night before that the program was being discontinued to make way for a baseball team.

“I had no idea it was going to happen,” Harris said of the BSU wrestling program getting eliminated. “It was definitely a big shock, but I just tried to keep my head up because I knew something better was going to come out of it. And it definitely did.”

Harris hadn’t been in contact with Oklahoma State during his college recruitment process, but the Cowboys’ coaches reached out to him while at the UWW Junior Greco Roman World Team Trials in Las Vegas last month.

“I hadn’t considered them (Oklahoma State) an option, because they’re a really top notch team,” Harris said. Yet, once the Cowboys came calling, Harris quickly took a visit to the campus in Stillwater and it wasn’t long after that he made a decision.

“I loved it. It was beautiful. It was hot. It wasn’t raining and the campus was beautiful.”

Oklahoma State is one of the top, if not the best, college wrestling programs in the NCAA. On the national level, the Cowboys have won 34 NCAA team titles, crowned 141 NCAA individual champions and earned 450 All-America honors. OSU has also won 51 Big 12 league titles as a team and Cowboy wrestlers have combined to win 277 individual conference championships.

Harris will be wrestling where many legendary wrestlers have before. His new coaches feel he has the make-up to be pretty good as well.

“They like my style of wrestling. I’m really tall. They like my build ’cause I can put a lot more muscle on than the short guys. They said I reminded them of one of their previous who was kind of built just like me. So, they’re excited to have me down there and I’m excited to get down there.”

Harris was a four-time placer at the OSAA 6A state tournament and was a champion at 182 pounds his senior season.