Tulsa Coach Tre Lamb Heaps Praise on Oklahoma State Before Season Opener

Part of a head coach’s job is to play to his fan base. But Tulsa head football coach Tre Lamb did something that may haunt him on Saturday.

The Golden Hurricane will host the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Saturday in the season opener for both teams. Last year, Tulsa beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater for the first time in decades, 19-12. The loss triggered the firing of Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy and the eventual hiring of new head coach Eric Morris.

That win was a big deal for the Golden Hurricane. When Lamb and his players were honored during a basketball game earlier this year, he told the home crowd, in reference to the rematch that “We’ll beat their [expletive deleted] again,” Lamb said, per the Tulsa World.

Well, late last week, Lamb was singing a much different tune about the Cowboys.

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That’s what Lamb called the Cowboys in an interview with Channel 6 in Tulsa in video captured by Tulsa’s sideline reporter, Jeremie Poplin. It was a far more deferential and respectful Lamb when asked about playing the Cowboys a year after his Golden Hurricane upset them.

“This is the most talented team we’re gonna play… This is the Big 12. It’s a different world,” he said. “Coach Morris is a really good evaluator of talent, his staff and Raj [Murti] their GM, they’ve done an unreal job of bringing good players in and we know what’s in front of us.”

Even with the win over Oklahoma State last season, the Golden Hurricane finished the season 4-8 and missed a bowl game. The Cowboys went 1-11 and haven’t won a Big 12 regular-season game since the end of the 2023 season. Lamb was playing to his fans during basketball season and it’s hard to blame him. He has tickets to sell and wants to generate interest in his program. But now he must tone it down and get his team ready to play.

That’s part of the message this week to his players — this is a Big 12 team and one far more talented than the one the Golden Hurricane beat in Stillwater last year.

“You can't make undisciplined mistakes and overcome them when you're playing good people,” he said. “This is not an American conference game — this is the Big 12.”

He had plenty of praise for quarterback Drew Mestemaker, who he sees as a passer that is well-equipped to take advantage of any little mistakes his defense makes.

“We jumped an under route [in practice] and you jump an under route against Mestemaker and that’s gonna be seven points,” Lamb said.

The game will be the debut of Morris and 92 new transfers, most of which have no connection to last year’s loss. Still, it’s his first chance to lead his new team into a game and he wants the Cowboys to get off on the right foot when kickoff comes at 2:30 p.m.

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