Five Most Important Things Eric Morris Said About Oklahoma State vs. Oregon
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The Oklahoma State Cowboys will take a second shot at their first win of the season when they host the Oregon Ducks on Saturday.
It will be the toughest test of the season and head coach Eric Morris knows it. He knows Oregon coach Dan Lanning and his scheme well. They faced each other in 2022 when Morris was the offensive coordinator at Washington State, and the two schools were still in the Pac-12. Now, Oregon (1-0) is the Big Ten Conference.
He also said that left tackle Jacob Sexton is out for the season with a leg injury. Desmond Magiya and Shaun Torgeson will compete for the right to start against Oregon.
The Cowboys (0-1) are coming off a 24-10 loss to Tulsa and are trying to erase that from the data banks. Here are the five most important things Morris said on Tuesday.
The Critical Mistakes
The Cowboys practiced and broke down film before Morris met with the media. He was asked if he had a “checklist” of what the Cowboys did wrong on Saturday against Tulsa. He did, and it was fresh in his mind because he had just finished talking about it.
“There's a ton of different things: execution, people not on the same page,” Morris said. “Thought pass pro[taction] was an issue. You know, I thought we had some busts, a couple of busted coverages. We had some busts in assignments. We talked about being in shape or not, and you know, looking at our team on the fourth quarter, we didn't look like we were a team that that was in shape and ready to go get it and go win a game.”
Constructive Criticism for Drew Mestemaker
Morris said one of the best things about quarterback Drew Mestemaker is his ability to take in constructive criticism and turn it into something position the next game. Morris made it sound like the redshirt sophomore has a short memory.
He’ll need it. Morris shared part of what he saw on film. He said the lack of execution was a big deal, but that Tulsa was also partially responsible for his issues.
“[He was] maybe a little antsy early and missed a couple [of throws],” Morris said. “He's so accurate, especially intermediate routes, and has been. He probably would have liked to have gotten a couple shots [down the field]. They really put an umbrella on the defense, and they did a nice job with some simulated pressures.”
No Moral Victories, But …
Morris wasn’t into playing into any moral victories after the Tulsa loss. The post-mortem, he said, was rough. The coaches told each other a lot of truth, and the coaches told the players a lot of truth. There is nothing good about losing, he said. But there was one silver lining, he said.
“Now we have a point that we know exactly [the] identified problems, and now we start building this thing from the inside out and one step at a time,” Morris said. “And there's a lot of different things that go into that, right? So off we go.”
Morris said it’s time for his team to start showing growth.
Being Aggressive on Fourth Down
Morris was critical of his own play calling on fourth down against Tulsa. He believes it’s part of what led the Cowboys to go 2-for-6 on that down. In his film breakdown, he noted that some of the issues were execution-based.
He doesn’t sound like a coach who is ready to dial it back, especially on fourth-and-1, a down he says is a “go.” But he believes he’ll know when he has to dial it down.
“Obviously, if this becomes a trend, I gotta be smart enough to say, ‘Hey, let's punt the ball away and let our defense play good defense and try to get it back,’” Morris said.
The Big ‘Mo”
Morris acknowledged that the good vibrations of the offseason came to a screeching halt after the loss to Tulsa. He said the season isn’t over. But he also said it’s up to the Cowboys to reclaim the momentum they lost.
“We spent a lot of time talking about that actually today, and I think we saw that in a negative way,” Morris said. “You know, you have all this momentum, and when you have it, you want to keep it. When you don't got it, you got to go get it.”
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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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