Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker Excited About Wide-Open Big 12 Conference

FRISCO, Texas — The Big 12 Conference hasn’t had a back-to-back champion since 2020, when the Oklahoma Sooners won the last of their six straight titles.

Since then? Baylor, Kansas State, Texas, Arizona State and Texas Tech have all won the championship. In 2023, Oklahoma State faced Texas in the title game and lost, which was two years after the Cowboys faced Baylor in that game and lost.

Since then, the Cowboys are 4-20. It’s why they have a new head coach in Eric Morris and a brand-new roster with more than 80 players that weren’t with the team last year.

Morris called it a “hard reset” earlier on Tuesday. New quarterback Drew Mestemaker sees it as an opportunity.

Oklahoma State’s Big Opportunity

Mestemaker is new to the Big 12 but not new to winning under Morris. He was the North Texas quarterback that led the Mean Green to a 12-2 season under Morris. He’s an Austin, Texas, native, so he’s seen Big 12 football up close, and the wide-open nature of the league is part of what excites him about this season — even with OSU coming off a 1-11 season.

“The Big 12 is a conference where there’s no one team really at the top that has been there multiple years,” Mestemaker said. “It’s kind of a new winner every year. So, I think that’s something that excites us and really lets us set our goals high, like we can win this conference championship and be at the top of this thing.”

That’s an audacious goal for the Cowboys, whose last Big 12 win was at the end of the 2023 season over BYU. Since then, it’s 18 straight league losses. But Mestemaker is one of the many players that can help fix that.

Mestemaker threw for 4,379 yards, which led all quarterbacks in FBS. He also led the country in passing yards per attempt at 9.46 yards. His 32 passing touchdowns were second in the country. He set several other program records last season and was named the Bulsworth Trophy winner, which is given to the best player in the country who started his career as a walk-on.

Safe to say he won’t have a problem hanging onto a scholarship now. He was named the Big 12 newcomer of the year by the coaches. He was at the Manning Passing Academy last month. He’s even on some NFL Draft watch lists, even though he’s only in his third year of college football. A lot would have to go right for him to leave for the NFL after this season.

But he’s clearly not waiting his turn, nor does he believe that Oklahoma State would wait its turn as it rebuilds its team in the post-Gundy era. The thought is, “why not us?”

“Coach Morris’ whole thing is we’re going to win wherever we go. So I think if you don’t have that mindset, you’re not in it for the right reasons and that’s how you should feel every day,” Mestemaker said.

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