How Oklahoma State Football Won Offseason of Huge Change

It’s been more than two decades since the Oklahoma State Cowboys went through something like this offseason. Here’s why they won.

Oklahoma State head coach Eric Morris. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Anytime a program moves away from a legend the next season could go many directions. That's what makes the Oklahoma State Cowboys so intriguing to national analysts going into the 2026 season.

Oklahoma State parted with Mike Gundy three games into last season and the Cowboys finished 1-11. The season before, Oklahoma State went 3-9. Back in 2023, OSU was in the Big 12 title game for the second time in three years. That feels like generations ago to Cowboys fans.

New coach Eric Morris has struck an optimistic tone in Stillwater. But one national analyst is bullish on the Cowboys this season.

According to Ari Wasserman of On3 (subscription required), the Cowboys were one of five teams that won the offseason. He ranked the Cowboys at No. 2, behind only LSU, which hired Lane Kiffin before last season ended.

How Cowboys Won The Offseason

Indiana Football has coach Curt Cignetti. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Wasserman’s reasoning was sound. He saw what OSU did under Gundy in its final two seasons and saw the hiring of Morris as the “Curt Cignetti model” for a program turnaround — wholesale and one that could potentially make big waves in Year 1.

Cignetti was hired by Indiana before the 2024 season from James Madison. He was a highly successful coach at JMU, Elon and IUP but had never led a power conference program. He took over the Hoosiers, who had never won a national championship and had not won the Big Ten since 1965.

His model was simple. He brought a bushel of talent with him from JMU, hungry to prove it could play power conference football, and liberally used the transfer portal to turn the Hoosiers into a winner in Year 1, which led to a College Football Playoff berth. That 11-2 season allowed him to boost his prep recruiting and lure Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza last season. The Hoosiers went 16-0, won the Big Ten, won the CFP national championship and Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy. He was also the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft.

Morris has a similar profile. He built a winning program at Incarnate Word that had little history and rebuilt the program at North Texas. When he arrived at OSU, he brought nearly 20 of his Mean Green players with him, along with nearly his entire staff. Morris used the transfer portal more heavily than Cignetti and has nearly 90 new players.

That has increased expectations in Stillwater. After going 4-20 over the last two seasons. The feeling is there is enough talent to, at minimum, give the Cowboys a shot at a bowl game in Morris’ first season. If that talent maxes out? Perhaps they can turn things around in a year and position themselves for a berth in the Big 12 title game? It would be an incredible one-year turnaround.

Indiana was 3-9 the season before Cignetti arrived. Food for thought as fall workouts close in.