FRISCO, Texas - Eric Morris spent Tuesday making the rounds at his first Big 12 Media Days as Oklahoma State’s head coach, and by the end of it he and his family were ready for a vacation.
That kind of day comes with the territory when you’re one of four first-year head coaches at the event. Morris talked with ESPN, took questions at the podium during the televised portion, met with reporters in a group setting and then handled breakout sessions later in the day.
The Oklahoma State coach had plenty to say about the job in front of him, the program he inherited and the way he’s trying to shape the Cowboys as they head into the season.
Morris, a Shallowater, Texas native who played for Mike Leach at Texas Tech and coached there as an assistant from 2013-17, already knew Boone Pickens Stadium from the other side. His memories came from his playing and coaching days, when Oklahoma State was known for the noise, the success under Mike Gundy and the tough nights opponents faced there.
But once he got to Stillwater in December, he realized those memories didn’t match what some of the current players had lived through.
“Now, when I got there, I had to sit back and realize that there had been kids that are in this program that have been there for two years that hadn't experienced walking in that locker room after winning a conference game,” he said. “So that was something really unique for me because my memories were great, and then I had to realize a bunch of our players' memories haven't been great in the recent past.”
That reality shaped the way he approached his first team meeting after arriving on campus in January. Morris met with the transfers and the holdover Cowboys, and what he saw immediately was a team still split into separate circles.
The North Texas players stayed together. The Oklahoma State players stayed together.
The other transfers were off to the side, looking for a place to land. Morris shut that down fast.
“From our very first team meeting, all the North Texas guys were sitting in the front right, and the first thing I did when I addressed the team is I made everybody stand up, move, and go sit by somebody they didn't know so we could immediately start forming new relationships,” he said. “Because it's not about us and them. This is all about Oklahoma State versus a really good conference in the Big 12.”
He also made clear he understands the weight of following Mike Gundy, a coach whose name is tied tightly to the program on both sides of the sideline. Morris didn’t shy away from that standard, even while acknowledging that Gundy’s run ended differently than anyone would have wanted.
“My predecessor had an amazing career in Mike Gundy,” he said. “I mean, all the respect in the world to how much success that he had there, being somewhere 21 years, and then obviously he was such a great player there. As a competitor, you're always chasing that, and the bar is set pretty high.”
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