Morris debuts at Tulsa, where OSU's 11-game skid began
Eric Morris opens his Oklahoma State tenure Saturday at the same place last year's collapse started, with a rebuilt roster, a cleared defensive lineman and a fresh depth chart all landing in the same week.
Morris sets his lineup, and the fight for jobs isn't over
Oklahoma State's first depth chart of the Morris era has no drama at the position that matters most: Drew Mestemaker starts at quarterback, Grant Jordan is next in line and true freshman Broderick Vehrs sits third, per SI's Oklahoma State coverage. The real competition is one level down, at Y receiver, where Miles Coleman and Wyatt Young both carry an "OR" designation. Elsewhere the staff has made its calls — Chris Barnes over Terrence Lewis at Z, Justin Bowick over Rodney Harris II at X, and Caleb Hawkins, who followed Morris from North Texas, as the lead back over Tre Page III, per Yahoo Sports.
Up front, Jaleel Johnson and James Williams are the starting ends on paper, but Morris plans to rotate 6 to 8 different ends against Tulsa quarterback Baylor Hayes just to find out who can get after him in the Oklahoma heat. "This place buys into a blue-collar approach, that we're gonna be gritty and tough and physical and play with violence," Morris said this week, via News 9. With 92 newcomers against just 25 holdovers and a plan to travel 76 or 77 players Saturday, this is closer to an expansion roster than a rebuild — and the clearest example of what Morris wants is safety Quinton Hammonds, a North Texas walk-on who followed his coach to Stillwater on the strength of special-teams tape.
Last season ended with 5 straight losses, and it started right here
Oklahoma State finished last season on a 5-game slide, closing with a 13-20 loss to Iowa State on November 29 after getting run off the field by Texas Tech 0-42, falling to Kansas 21-38, losing 6-14 at home to Kansas State and 14-17 to UCF. Mike Gundy was fired the following Tuesday after 21 seasons, per ESPN, handing Morris a program mid-collapse rather than a rebuild in the abstract.
The collapse actually started against Saturday's opponent: a 19-12 home loss to Tulsa last September, Oklahoma State's first defeat to the Golden Hurricane since 1998 and its first home loss to them since 1951. That loss kicked off an 11-game losing streak that became the longest active skid in the country this week once UMass snapped its own 16-gamer, per Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports. Morris does have a personal answer for Tulsa, at least — he beat the Golden Hurricane twice while running North Texas, in 2023 and 2024.
Oates' restraining order holds, and he's set to suit up
Defensive lineman Iman Oates was granted a temporary restraining order against the NCAA in Payne County back in late July, with his attorney Ryan Downton of the Texas Trial Group telling On3's Pete Nakos it opened a path for Oates to play this fall. Oates spent 2 seasons at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M before landing at Oklahoma State, and he's posted 5 tackles for loss over his last 2 seasons in Stillwater.
That path runs straight through Tulsa: with the TRO still in place, Oates is cleared to play in the opener, a boost for a defensive line that's already planning to lean on a heavy rotation in the road-game heat. The case still hinges on the NCAA's age-based "five-for-five" eligibility window — Oates is 23, and the argument, per Yahoo Sports, is that his 2 years at a junior college outside the NCAA shouldn't have counted against his clock. A hearing on the preliminary injunction is still expected to be scheduled in the coming weeks, so his status beyond Saturday remains technically undecided even as he takes the field.
A double-digit favorite carrying the nation's longest skid into the same building
Oklahoma State is this afternoon at Tulsa, and the market has made the Cowboys clear favorites off the opener — the line opened at -14.5, with the total set at 61.5, a number that reads high-scoring for a game between two teams replacing pieces on both sides. It's a wide enough gap that a rebuilt Oklahoma State roster is being asked to prove it belongs on the wrong side of the spread it lost to a year ago.
Tulsa enters at 0-0 after finishing last season on a 24-31 loss to UAB, but coach Tre Lamb says continuity is the story: he told NewsOn6 the Golden Hurricane retained roughly 80 percent of the roster, and sophomore quarterback Baylor Hayes — who made 9 starts as a true freshman, including the road win over Oklahoma State last September — has added more than 20 pounds heading into his second year running the offense. Lamb has called this group an American Conference sleeper capable of the program's first breakthrough win in years, which is exactly the kind of opponent a first-year staff would rather not open against.