STILLWATER - Oklahoma State’s trip to Tulsa on Saturday carries more than the usual season-opener weight. It brings the Cowboys face-to-face with the team that set off the collapse of last season, the loss that snapped a 10-game run in the Turnpike Classic and started the chain reaction that ended with Mike Gundy’s firing.
Last Sept. 19 at Boone Pickens Stadium, Tulsa walked off with a 19-12 win, its first in Stillwater since 1951. Oklahoma State’s final possession never really had a pulse, and the scene afterward said plenty about the mood around the program.
Tulsa players celebrated. Cowboys receiver Gavin Freeman was forced out of bounds on the play that ended it, and he slapped his gloves together in frustration as the home crowd watched the Golden Hurricane take the victory.
Inside the locker room, the feeling was nowhere near settled.
“It was a lot of anger and stuff, people trying to be calm and stuff, telling us: ‘We good, we good’ and stuff like that.” defensive end Jaleel Johnson said Tuesday. “I didn’t think so, I mean, that was bad.”
Johnson, now a fifth-year senior captain, was right about the bigger picture. Oklahoma State didn’t recover.
The Cowboys lost every remaining game, and four days after the Tulsa defeat, Gundy - the program’s winningest and longest-tenured coach - was out. By the end of the season, the most recognizable symbol of the year may have been the shirtless fan group that kept showing up while everything else unraveled.
Now the Cowboys are trying to turn the page under Eric Morris, who arrived with his own North Texas contingent and a massive wave of change. OSU has 91 newcomers, and Morris is the man charged with steering the program into something different. Tulsa is the first stop.
“Is everybody excited?” Morris asked Tuesday.
“Obviously it's been a long time coming. I think nine months.”
For Johnson, the matchup still has sting.
“I was pretty upset,” Johnson said. “You know, just having them come to our place, beating us like that, it was bad, but I can’t wait to get our getback this Saturday for sure.”
The Cowboys enter the game with an 11-game winning streak in season openers, the fourth-longest such streak in FBS. But most of the roster isn’t carrying last year’s baggage. The newcomers weren’t around for the Tulsa loss, the rest of the 2024 season, or the mess that followed in 2025.
Morris has also made it clear he wants a different look around the program. When the shirtless cheering section resurfaced during the spring game, he said he wanted it gone.
“I do kind of want to get rid of the no-shirt thing, spinning, at some point,” Morris said. “It ran its course in my opinion.
There's some people up there doing it, but we’re going to be winning too many damn games and not be something that somebody can be on TV and make fun of us for something like (that). That is, in my opinion, something that I would like to push out at some point.”
That backdrop makes Saturday matter even more, especially with preseason No. 2 Oregon coming to Stillwater next week. Morris knows the Cowboys need something early to build on.
"I think, obviously, college football is all about momentum and creating energy,” Morris said. “So, that's something that we're going to have to do a really good job of is we got to give the fans something to cheer about, right?”
Tulsa coach Tre Lamb added another layer in February, when he spoke at a Tulsa basketball game and looked ahead to the rematch. His line was blunt: “We’ll beat their a** again.”
He has since toned down the rhetoric, comparing OSU quarterback Drew Mestemaker to Phillip Rivers and Brett Favre and calling himself a junior varsity version of Morris. Morris, for his part, has spoken positively about Lamb and the job he’s done.
Still, the earlier jab reached the Oklahoma State locker room.
“Oh yeah, we heard it,” Johnson said. “We ain’t going to say too much, but we definitely took notice of it.”
In Other News...
Oklahoma State Still Has One Crucial Battle To Settle In Week 1
Oklahoma States secondary is still sorting itself out heading into Week 1, and the cornerback room has become one of the more interesting parts of camp. The depth chart points to a true competition, with multiple players listed as possible starters and the staff leaving room for flexibility rather than locking in a pair and moving on. For a defense that wants to open the season on solid footing, the Cowboys are clearly treating the job as something to be earned, not assigned.
Head coach Eric Morris has said all five cornerbacks have stood out in fall camp, which is why the group appears headed for a rotation when Tulsa comes to town. The bigger question now is how that competition carries into live action, because Morris has made it clear the final call will come down to what happens on the field, not just what has shown up in practice. In a room this crowded, Week 1 may not settle everything, but it should go a long way toward defining who is first in line. [Read more 🡒]
Eric Morris Sees Familiar Stakes In Tulsa Showdown
Tre Lamb sees a bit of his own path in Eric Morris, and it is easy to understand why. Both coaches climbed through FCS jobs on their way to bigger stages, building reputations as young program builders before landing in the state of Oklahoma. Morris, now leading Oklahoma State, has been quick to notice the resemblance and has spoken highly of Lambs development, framing Tulsas new coach as someone who has earned each step of the rise.
The matchup brings those similar careers into the same game for the first time, which adds a little extra intrigue to an already local showdown. Morris also likes what he has seen from Tulsas broader effort to give Lamb the support needed to reshape the program, and that kind of backing matters when a coach is trying to establish a new identity. The stakes Saturday are about more than a scoreboard, because both sides will be measuring how far their young coaches have come and how much further they can still go. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma State Enters Tulsa With Three Crucial Trust Questions
Oklahoma State has spent camp preparing for a 12-game season, and the opener at Tulsa on Saturday is the first chance to see how Eric Morris wants to handle the early balancing act. The offensive line is already set in one key spot, with Jacob Sexton starting at left tackle, but the staff has been clear that this group will not be built around a single five-man unit.
The same sort of competition is carrying over to the other side of the ball, where the cornerback spot and the defensive front four are still being sorted out. Skyler Cassity plans to rotate players extensively as the staff looks for the right mix, and the first game should offer an early look at how many pieces Oklahoma State is willing to trust while the season is still taking shape. [Read more 🡒]