Eric Morris is spending the final stretch before Oklahoma State’s season opener trying to do something a lot of college football programs talk about but don’t always pull off: slow things down.
With Big 12 Football Media Days underway in Frisco, the first-year Cowboys coach sat down with News On 6 Sports Director John Holcomb and laid out a summer plan built around separation, recovery and a little bit of anticipation. Morris said Oklahoma State has made “light-years of progress” this offseason, but he also believes the sport has turned into “a rat race” with too much year-round access.
That’s why, for the last two weeks and the next two weeks, the coaches are out of the office while the players stay in Stillwater with strength coaches, lifting, running and bonding away from football.
“I think it’s good to get recuperated and refreshed,” Morris said. “The players need time together just running, lifting and getting away from football because when they get back into the building for fall camp, I want there to be excitement. I think we’ve kind of lost that a little bit nowadays with college football becoming a 365-day-a-year program.”
He said the goal is to have the group come back with energy once fall camp opens.
“We’ve got two more weeks where the kids will be in Stillwater training hard, running, lifting and getting bigger, faster and stronger. Hopefully, when we reconvene, the excitement and the spark will be there.”
Morris also explained why he wanted the coaches to step away, too. In his view, the nonstop grind has only intensified as the NCAA has opened up more summer access.
“Watching it over the last four or five years, the more summer access the NCAA allowed us to have, people are practicing year-round and meeting year-round,” he said. “You have to stay within your hour regulations, but I think the strength coaches need their time to develop toughness.
I think the coaches need to get away. I think these guys need to rest, get away from football and refresh their minds because it’s a long season. Once you start at the first of August and go all the way until December, that’s really taxing physically and mentally.”
A big part of Oklahoma State’s identity this season will come from a new quarterback-receiver pairing: Drew Mestemaker and Wyatt Young. Mestemaker was named the Big 12 Preseason Newcomer of the Year, while Young earned preseason All-Big 12 honors, and Morris made it clear how important that connection will be.
He pointed to his own past with Graham Harrell as a reminder that quarterback chemistry matters, even if the talent level isn’t the same.
“I wasn’t nearly as talented as Wyatt is, so I knew my relationship with Graham Harrell back in the day had to be spectacular,” Morris said. “I was the grunt going out there to run routes anytime just so we could build that chemistry.
They both have great chemistry together right now, but I still think they both have a lot to prove. Moving up a level, there are still going to be doubters this year.
We call ourselves the ‘Misfits’ because we’ve got 87 new guys from all over the country who have come together. Some came from positive situations, some came from negative situations. I think this group has a lot to prove, and that’s really hard to do in this day and age of college football.
We’ve got to be willing to sacrifice for one another, but those two will be the key engines that drive this thing this year.”
Morris also had strong words for Mestemaker, who has drawn attention despite not having extensive experience. The coach said the quarterback’s processing speed stands out immediately.
“He processes information really, really fast, which is a key attribute to have as a quarterback,” Morris said. “He’s also such a good teammate and human being.
He went to the Manning Passing Academy a couple of weeks ago, and I got so many text messages from colleagues-not just talking about how good he was on the field, but about how humble he was, how pleasant he was and how much fun he was to be around.
“I think people love to play alongside him. The best quarterbacks in the world have the ability to make everybody better on the team, and he definitely has a bunch of those traits.”
The conversation also turned to leadership, and Morris said the biggest lesson from his eight years as a head coach is that the hard part comes when things go sideways.
“One thing I’ve learned in my time as a head coach is it’s easy to lead when things are going good. It’s really difficult to lead when things aren’t going so good.
There’s going to be adversity that strikes this group at some point this year. It might be early, and it might be late. Learning how to stick together and learning how to lead during difficult times is one thing I’ve really learned over the last eight years as a head coach.
When things are going good, everybody loves you. When they’re not, keeping a group as large as we have together can be difficult. That’s a challenge that sits on my plate, and I enjoy doing it whether we’re doing well or not.”
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