Three Things We Learned About the New Oklahoma State Football Offense
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New Oklahoma State head coach Eric Morris’ reputation is wrapped up on the offensive side of the football. That isn't much of a surprise considering his background.
He played wide receiver at Texas Tech under head coach Mike Leach and was a teammate at Michael Crabtree. He’s run Leach’s Air Raid offense throughout his career, which included head-coaching stints at Incarnate Word and North Texas, the latter of which is what got him the job at OSU.
Last year the Mean Green went 12-2 and had one of the most productive offenses in the country. Morris was smart enough to land nearly 20 of his former players out of the transfer portal. But he imported plenty of talent form other parts of the country as well.
Oklahoma State started workouts last Wednesday which means they're officially a week into preparation for the season. Here are three things we've learned about the Oklahoma State offense.
Can You Keep Up?
The Air Raid relies on pace. It's sort of like a track meet on a football field. The teams that run it the best run it the quickest and they do so because of extraordinary repetition in practice. We got a glimpse of that a couple of practices ago when Jacob Unruh at The Oklahoman recorded nearly a minute of footage of the Oklahoma State offense practicing their offense as quickly as possible.
In less than a minute the Cowboys ran four plays with quarterback Drew Mestemaker running the offense. It was clean, it was efficient and it was almost game-like. The only reason it wasn't was because no one fell to the ground and there wasn't much contact.
But it forced me to dive into how North Texas ran its offense last season since Morris was the head coach and many of his offensive stars migrated with him from Denton. The Mean Green ran a play approximately every 24.5 seconds on offense. While their time of possession was ranked 110th in the country they were the only offense in the country to post more than 500 yards per game.
That's what that offense looked like in that small snippet of video, one that could put up huge points and big yards in a short amount of time. That is the distillation of what Morris is trying to build with Oklahoma State, and he has the talent to do it quickly. The only question is how quickly that practice will translate into how the Cowboys perform on game day?
The Running Game Will Be More Than Caleb Hawkins
There is no doubt that Caleb Hawkins is going to start at running back for the Oklahoma State Cowboys. But while he wants to in his own words put together a better season in 2026, it's very possible he may not touch the ball quite as much as he did in 2025.
For perspective, Hawkins was a true freshman last season and touched the football 263 times. UNT ran the ball 517 times last season and he carried it 44.6% of the time. No other back in the offense carried it more than 75 times.
Morris is conscious of the workload. Hawkins has at least two years of college football ahead of him and while he wants to maximize Hawkins’ production his offense relies on exploiting matchups and for that he needs more than one running back.
I think why he's talked up so many other backs in camp, including freshman KD Jones, one of his former backs at UNT, Ayo Adeyi (who was at James Madison last season) and Abilene Christian transfer Tre Pate III. Morris envisions a role for each of them and sees opportunities to use four or five backs on gameday.
Hawkins will be the bell cow, so to speak, but he'll have plenty of talent around him depending on the set. It should make the Cowboys offense more versatile and should give Hawkins a little bit of a breather.
An Offensive Line of Multiple Parts
Morris set a deadline of sorts the first day of fall camp. He wants to have his top eight offensive lineman determined by the end of the first scrimmage, which is this coming Saturday. That's an audacious goal for a team with 21 offensive lineman who are learning a brand-new offense and are coming off a 1-11 season.
But it's worth understanding that Morris wants to give his offensive line ample time to learn how to play together because that chemistry is going to be key to making his Air Raid offense run effectively.
To that end, Morris believes he needs versatility up front and he’s recruited it. Former Oklahoma transfer Jacob Sexton has played both tackle and guard. Same goes for Coastal Carolina offensive lineman Joseph Hanson. While holdover lineman Jakobe Sanders is competing for the starting center job, he can play at either guard position.
Morris’ former North Texas left tackle, Brayden Nelson, can also play left guard. And he may not be ready for the season opener due to injury. So that puts a tackle like Ashton Lepo in the mix, and he can play both tackle positions.
While Morris has more than 100 players on the roster, he's only allowed to suit up a certain amount on gameday. That includes road trips. Finding those top eight offensive lineman and knowing they can play in different places will be key the rest of camp.
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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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