Wyatt Young said it before Oklahoma State ever stepped on the field against Oregon: don’t count this team out.
That line sounded bold, maybe even a little reckless, after the Cowboys had just stumbled through a 24-10 loss at Tulsa. Eric Morris called it the worst offensive performance he’d ever been a part of, and Tulsa coach Tre Lamb said he was kind of mad his team didn’t win by 21.
But Young stuck with his belief, and on Saturday Oklahoma State backed it up with a 39-31 upset of No. 6 Oregon.
Young was a big part of it, too. He finished with five catches for 121 yards and a touchdown.
After the game, he explained why he never wavered.
“Because I know who is on this team,” Young said. “I know the kind of players we have.
I mean, anybody in here, they give it their all. From Drew (Mestemaker) to me to Caleb (Hawkins) to (Christian) Bodnar to James (Williams) to (Ethan) Wesloski over there, anybody, we have the guys to make it all the way this year.
And if you put your mind to something then we can go and do it so I believed it.”
The Cowboys’ response showed up in all the right places, starting up front. Oklahoma State played without left tackle Jacob Sexton and Braydon Nelson, yet the offensive line held firm against an experienced Oregon front. A week after the pocket fell apart and running lanes vanished against Tulsa, OSU did not allow a sack and averaged 5.9 yards per rush.
“They were elite,” Mestemaker said. “They were playing fast, they were playing physical, they were coming off the ball fast and we couldn’t have won that game without them and for Caleb to get all his rushing yards off the ground, that O-Line was playing real good today.”
Mestemaker’s day was just as loud. The quarterback’s 75-yard run in the first half and his touchdown leap in the fourth quarter became the plays everyone kept replaying, and he also settled down after a rough outing against Tulsa to complete 26 of 43 passes for 60 percent. He out-dueled Moore, giving Oklahoma State the kind of quarterback performance it needed in a game like this.
The defense did its part, too. OSU sacked Dante Moore four times and was credited by Pro Football Focus with 14 quarterback hurries.
Oregon managed just 3 yards per carry, and PFF graded senior defensive end James Williams and senior defensive end Malik Charles as the Cowboys’ top two defenders. That was a major turnaround from the Tulsa game, when OSU failed to record a sack and had only one quarterback pressure.
There was also a little off-field theater after Morris picked up his first win as OSU’s head coach. His security detail apparently had its hands full, and Morris didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy the field rush. He shook hands with Oregon coach Dan Lanning, and law enforcement cleared a path for him to get off the field and do a television interview.
Not everything moved in the right direction. Running back Tre Page III slipped in the rotation after getting seven carries against Tulsa, and his role was smaller against Oregon.
Page had two carries for 6 yards, while senior Ayo Adeyi handled five carries for 24 yards. Both backed up Hawkins, who carried 23 times for 110 yards.
The win also triggered a pile of weekly honors for the Cowboys. Morris was named Dodd Trophy Coach of the Week.
Mestemaker collected Walter Camp FBS Offensive Player of the Week, Big 12 offensive player of the week, Davey O’Brien National QB of the Week and Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award Player of the Week. Ethan Wesloski earned Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week, Sam Keltner was Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week, and both the offensive line and defensive line were named Big 12 units of the week.
Elsewhere, former Oklahoma State players kept making noise in Week 1. QB Hauss Hejny of Colorado State threw for 325 yards on 18 completions in a 58-24 win against Southern Utah, and Colorado State is off to a 2-0 start this season with Hejny accounting for 10 touchdowns and one interception.
WR Gavin Freeman followed a 12-catch day against Auburn with 10 catches for 104 yards against Prairie View A&M. DE Wendell Gregory had two sacks and six tackles in Kansas State’s 34-7 win against Washington State.
OSU’s next matchup is against Murray State.
In Other News...
Oklahoma State's Oregon Upset Looks Even Better After What Cowboys Spotted
Oklahoma States upset of Oregon already stood out as one of the more intriguing wins on the schedule, and the postgame details have only made it look smarter in hindsight. The Cowboys defense was able to lean on a small but meaningful edge after noticing something in quarterback Dante Moores pre-snap behavior, the kind of tell that can tilt a possession when a game is tight and every snap matters.
Moore acknowledged afterward that his own tendencies were part of the picture and said he was willing to clean them up, while Oregons offensive coordinator said the issue has since been addressed. There is also the familiar chess-match layer every staff knows by heart, because what looks like a habit to one side can sometimes be turned into a weapon by the other, which is why this matchup now feels even more like a case of Oklahoma States defense seeing the field a step ahead. [Read more 🡒]
BYU Just Earned A New Place In The Big 12 Race
Week 2 of Big 12 play was the kind of slate that can start to separate the early contenders from the teams still trying to find their footing, and Oklahoma State came out of it looking like part of the conferences better side of the ledger. Along with Utah and BYU, the Cowboys were lumped into the leagues stock-up group after a strong showing that helped reshape the way the race looks this early in the season, while UCF and Kansas took the opposite route with rough afternoons.
For Oklahoma State, the performance mattered not just because it was a win, but because it arrived in a week when the conferences hierarchy felt especially unsettled. The Cowboys opened with an electric 75-yard run by Drew Mestemaker after a long lightning delay and kept control from there, the sort of start that can change the tone of a game in a hurry. It was also the kind of result few around the league likely had circled, which only adds to the sense that Oklahoma State may have already earned a more meaningful spot in the Big 12 conversation. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma State Fans Should Watch What Eric Morris Builds Next
The Athletics latest look at how power-conference schools are spending on football rosters offered another reminder that roster construction has become as important as Xs and Os. For Oklahoma State, the backdrop is a program adjusting to coaching changes and the realities of NIL and the transfer portal, while trying to stay competitive in a Big 12 landscape where every school is making hard choices about where to put its money.
Eric Morris is approaching the rebuild with a broad plan, one that blends roster additions, recruiting and player development. It is a different kind of team-building than the old model, and it comes at a moment when the Cowboys are trying to define how they want to operate moving forward. What makes it worth watching is how that approach unfolds after so much of last years roster moved on, and whether this version of Oklahoma State can piece itself together quickly enough to keep pace. [Read more 🡒]