Eric Morris Sees Tulsa Coach Tre Lamb as ‘Superstar in the Making’
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Earlier this week Tulsa head coach Tre Lamb called himself a “JV” version of Oklahoma State head coach Eric Morris.
The admiration is mutual.
The Oklahoma State head coach is 40 years old and is already on his third head-coaching job, but his first at the power conference level. He proved himself with stints at Incarnate Word, an FCS program in San Antonio, Texas, and North Texas. Morris went 46-34 at those schools, with two playoff berths at UIW and two bowl game trips at UNT, the latter of which he skipped after taking the OSU job.
Lamb is on the same trajectory. He’s 36 years old but he’s already on his third head-coaching job after stops at Garnder-Webb and ETSU, both at the FCS level. He won a pair of conference titles at G-W and went to the playoffs twice. Before going 4-8 at Tulsa last year, he had a winning record for his career.
To Morris, it’s only a matter of time before Lamb follows him into the power conference ranks.
Eric Morris on Tre Lamb
Morris will coach against Lamb for the first time on Saturday. The pair commiserated last year when Lamb took the job with the Golden Hurricane during American Conference activities but have never been in position to square off with one another. But Morris sees plenty to admire in Lamb.
“You can just tell when you listen to him talk that he always has a process, and he's trying to grow and learn, and he's figured out new ways [to succeed],” Morris said.
Like Morris, Lamb came up on the offensive side of the football. He played quarterback at Tennessee Tech. After he graduated, he became the program’s quarterbacks coach for a year before taking the same job at Mercer. Four years later he was back at Tennessee Tech as the offensive coordinator before taking the head-coaching job at Gardner-Webb in 2020.
Four seasons with Gardner-Webb led to a 7-5 season at ETSU before he was hired at Tulsa. Like Morris, he brought his quarterback with him — Baylor Hayes, though he wasn’t coming off an ultra-successful season like Drew Mestemaker was at North Texas.
Even though Lamb is four years younger than Morris, he’s already entering his seventh year as a head coach as Morris is entering his eighth. Morris said Lamb had a reputation in the American of being able to raise money and support for his program and praised Tulsa’s administration for giving Lamb what he needs to rebuild the program.
Tulsa has had just one winning season since it went 10-3 in 2016 under Phillip Montgomery. The Golden Hurricane has won just 11 games in the last three seasons. Morris sees that changing soon.
“I think their administration's done a good job of giving them more and more resources every single year,” Morris said. “So I think he's a superstar in the making.”
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Matthew Postins is the publisher of Oklahoma State on SI. He is an award-winning sports journalist who was formerly the editor of the College Football America Yearbook and covers the Big 12 Conference for Heartland College Sports.
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