Cowboys Insider: Oklahoma State Storms Field in Cathartic Win over Oregon

STILWATER, Okla. — I stood in the south end zone as the seconds ticked off of Oklahoma State’s stunning 39-31 win over No. 6 Oregon.

I say stunning because I didn't give them a chance. I'm not sure anybody gave him a chance. Even head coach Eric Morris, while acknowledging that his team had a great week of practice, was hesitant to say he knew it was coming.

You could tell the fans were ready to storm the field, especially after that Oregon fumble that led to their only turnover of the game after the two-minute timeout. Even more so after that last Drew Mestemaker run to move the chains and let the Cowboys run out the clock.

Five years ago, I was in the north end zone when Michigan beat Ohio State for the first time under Jim Harbaugh. It was a 20 degree day with snow flurries and it was a chaotic post-game. I was knocked down twice. I was shoved aside by fans. It was one of the craziest field stormings I've ever been a part of. It was an emotional release for that fan base. They hadn’t beaten “that school down south” in eight years.

Storming the Field with the Cowboys

“Go Pokes” sounds a lot like “Goalposts” if you say it 3 times fast. pic.twitter.com/JKCuTdRVad
— Oklahoma State Univ. (@okstate) September 13, 2026

In comparison, the Cowboys fans that stormed the field on Saturday did so with about as much politeness as one could ask for. Fans said excuse me as they walked by. The game staff did a tremendous job carving out an area for Oregon to get off the field. It was joyous. Fans were jumping up and down celebrating, high-fiving and had huge smiles on their faces.

It was an emotional release for a fan base that has had precious little to cheer about since the start of the 2024 season. The Cowboys hadn’t won a game in more than a year. Mike Gundy was fired. Eric Morris was hired. The roster is practically brand new.

Morris gets it. He didn’t see much of it. The Oklahoma State Patrol got him off the field right after his handshake to do interviews. He had to ask reporters if “they got the goal posts.” They did, coach, they did. They’re in a pond on campus.

“This is why everybody loves college football,” Morris said. “This place has been down for a while. I know it. I take great pride in this place. We have great friends in Stillwater, people we love and that our kids love. [After last week against Tulsa] they probably got the sense, ‘Here we go again.’”

Nope, not this time.

Morris and his staff challenged the players all week. He called film sessions after Tulsa “really tough.” They practiced outside all week. Morris wanted them better conditioned and better able to handle the weather. He also did away with player grading during the week. Players were graded on one scale — fast or not fast. And if you were not fast you were in trouble.

The simplicity worked.

“It helped a lot,” Cowboys offensive lineman Johnny Dickson III said. “You didn’t have to think too much about what this guy is going to do or what right step to take. The only thing we were graded on was being fast every play. It just opened us up a lot to play freely.”

The Cowboys did. From the start, it was their game. Mestemaker’s 75-yard run to begin the contest was out of the blue. It was just a simple fake handoff that Oregon’s defense just flat busted. After the game Mestemaker said he was expecting the safety to come to him, but he never did. All he saw was wide open turf.

From there, the Cowboys set the tone. But, Oklahoma State fans could be forgiven for being worried after Oregon quarterback Dante Moore threw that second touchdown pass to put the ducks ahead, 31-30, early in the fourth quarter. If there was a “Here we go again” moment in that game, that was it.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this scenario play out in big games. The underdog takes control, has the lead most of the game, gives it up late to the “better team” and the underdog fails to regain the lead. My trained eye and my experience led me to that conclusion.

Well, that’s not what happened. Mestemaker finished off the next drive by going airborne into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown and a play that 50 years from now Mestemaker will be standing on the field and tipping his cap for in a domed Boone Pickens Stadium.

The win is a game changer for the season. How the Cowboys did it is a program changer for the future. Did you know that more than 100 recruits were on campus for official visits on Saturday? The Cowboys put on a show. They put on the right show. They put on the kind of show that will make each of those recruits give OSU a second look.

As I finally made my way through the sea of humanity and got to the northeast end zone so I could make my way in to talk to Morris and players, I took one last look back at the field. I couldn't see the goal posts coming down but all I could see was people, just like that day in Ann Arbor five years ago.

And just like that day five years ago in Ann Arbor, I said to myself, “Something just changed.”

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