STILLWATER - Oklahoma State had chances to leave Houston with more than a narrow loss, and the choice that stood out most came before the halftime buzzer ever sounded.
Eric Morris elected to press on fourth-and-goal from the Houston 2-yard line instead of taking a field goal, and the decision wound up sitting at the center of a 35-32 defeat on Saturday. After the game, Morris didn’t hide from it.
“Going back, I chased some points again,” Morris said. “Look back, maybe if I had kicked that field goal early, here we are.
Tie ball game and maybe we find a way to get it into overtime so it's something that I got to soul search on and we had so much momentum I felt like both of those two drives to start the game and we’re marching it down and hit some big plays. To come away with just three at halftime is bad for them.”
The sequence played out in plain sight. During the timeout between the first and second quarters, kicker Sam Keltner never came onto the field with the sideline kicking net.
That was the sign. OSU sent the offense out instead, and quarterback Drew Mestemaker’s end-zone throw to Wyatt Young on a slant was knocked away after Young couldn’t shake tight coverage.
It was a familiar kind of miss for Oklahoma State. Morris had taken the aggressive route on the goal line in the season opener against Tulsa, and that gamble also came up empty. Since then, he had leaned more toward taking points - with field goals of 20 and 24 yards against Oregon, three more against West Virginia from 19, 29 and 30 yards, and another 29-yard try against UCF.
Against Houston, he went back to the gas pedal, and the margin of defeat made the decision impossible to ignore.
The loss also came with some clear warning signs beyond the scoreboard. Oklahoma State’s secondary had a rough night, surrendering a career-high 343 passing yards to Houston quarterback Conner Weigman. Morris was blunt about what he saw.
“I thought we were really bad in the secondary tonight,” Morris said. “You know, we lost in man-to-man coverage. We lost in zone coverage.”
The offensive line also took a step back after what had been a strong stretch over the previous four games. Mestemaker was sacked twice after absorbing just one sack during OSU’s four-game winning streak.
One of the biggest breakdowns came when left tackle Shaun Torgeson was beaten around the left side, leading to a sack fumble. Torgeson recovered it himself and turned the play into a 12-yard run.
Morris said the pressure started early, pointing to Houston’s movement up front and its blitz looks.
“Yeah I thought (Mestemaker) was getting pressure, and so early on (Houston) did a nice job with some twist game, and they hit us with some zero blitzes at times,” Morris said.
There was at least one big offensive bright spot for the Cowboys, and it came from a familiar position with an unusual workload. Caleb Hawkins led the team with seven catches for 125 yards and a touchdown, giving Oklahoma State its most productive pass-catching threat of the day.
He also delivered the team’s longest passing play of the season, a 66-yard swing pass down the sideline that he finished in the end zone. Hawkins did all of that as a 219-pound running back.
The result hit OSU’s league outlook hard, too. On Kalshi’s prediction market, the Cowboys’ odds of winning the Big 12 Championship dropped from 13.1% before the Houston game to 5% after it.
In the standings, the 2-1 Cowboys now trail 3-0 BYU, Texas Tech and Utah, along with 3-1 Houston. Their odds to win the Big 12 Championship game also slid to +1900, fifth in the league behind BYU (+200), Texas Tech (+245), Utah (+300) and Houston (+750).
Around the transfer portal, former OSU running back Rodney Fields Jr. had eight carries for 66 yards and a touchdown against Kansas, plus one catch for 15 yards for Kansas State. Former OSU receiver Gavin Freeman caught seven passes for 76 yards for Baylor, and his 50 receptions this season tie him for No. 2 in the nation.
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