Eric Morris Is the Next Oklahoma State Head Football Coach

STILLWATER – Watching practice Tuesday afternoon outside the Sherman Smith Training Center and Oklahoma State athletics director Chad Weiberg walked into the Sherman Smith and pulled aside assistant athletic director for athletic performance Rob Glass and spoke with him for about 10 minutes before walking out and back to the Athletic Center. Moments later, news began breaking as Oklahoma State alum and current On3 national college football reporter Brett McMurphy tweeted that he had confirmed that North Texas head coach Eric Morris was being hired as the new head football coach at Oklahoma State University.

The news was soon picked up across the board among most of the major outlets that cover college football. Pokes Report was able to confirm the news through sources in the Oklahoma State athletic department and confirm that knowing the news was about to break, Weiberg was there to alert Rob Glass. Glass has been handling the internal management in the West End Zone throughout the interim since former head coach Mike Gundy was dismissed on Sept. 23. 

Later in the afternoon, Oklahoma State actually released the news on their webbsite and athletic director Chad Weiberg was quoted.

"Today begins the next era of Oklahoma State Football," Weiberg said in the story on okstate.com. "I am thrilled to introduce Eric Morris, his wife Maggie and their boys Jack and George to the OSU Family. Coach Morris has proven his ability to build and lead winning football programs. He has consistently identified, recruited, and developed some of the best players in college football."

Sources told On3 that a deal has been signed between Morris and Oklahoma State. Morris will remain with North Texas through the end of the season, including the playoffs. North Texas will host Temple in Denton, Texas on Friday. The Mean Green are 10-1 this season and a win will secure their spot in the American Conference Championship Game on Dec. 5 with North Texas as the likely host team. 

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Eric Morris this season at North Texas,

Morris is in his third season as head coach at North Texas and his overall record is 21-15 at North Texas. He was also a very successful head coach at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. He was 24-18 there and led UIW into the second round of the FCS playoffs. 

During his time in San Antonio, orchestrated an offense that finished in the top 10 nationally for total offense in three of his four seasons, including leading the nation in 2020-21 at 552.3 yards per game. His teams finished in the top five in scoring both of his final two seasons, third in 2020-21 (42.0 ppg) and fifth in 2021 at 39.5 ppg.

Morris was then hired as the offensive coordinator at Washington State. That is where he was before being hired by North Texas. In one season at Washington State, Morris engineered an offense that ranked first in the Pac 12 and 10th nationally in red zone efficiency, scoring 91.5 percent of its trips inside the 20. The Cougars’ 52 points at Stanford were the most scored in a conference game since 2019, and the most in a road conference game since 2018.

It is expected that Morris will make an appearance in Stillwater and begin the process of putting together a staff. It would also seem critical that Morris would get in touch with several key recruits like commitments Landon Bland, DE, Carthage, Mo; Carter Langenderfer, safety, Owassom Okla; Braeden Presley, Ath, Bixby, Okla; Maliek Bracy, cornerback, Argyle, Texas; Aiden Martin, Offensive tackle, Berryhill, Okla; Bryton Niu, tight end, Lehi, Utah, and Julius Wilson, wide receiver, Owasso, Okla.

These former commitments have been wanting this news and a chance to connect with the new coach, in this case, Eric Morris. They include Jenks running back Kaydin Jones; Cherry Hill (Cross Country), Ark. defensive tackle Danny Beale III; Waco LaVega, Texas receiver Jabarie Thornton; Crowley, Texas cornerback Brandon Ford; Bixby, Okla linebacker Trey McGlothlin, Owasso, Okla. defensive end Tajh Overton; Edmond Santa Fe, Okla. defensive end Landen Anderson; and Fort Bend Travis, Texas cornerback Josiah Vilmael. 

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Drew Mestemaker is an amazing “Cinderella” story as UNT quarterback.

The hope is he will bring as his No. 1 recruit, the current North Texas quarterback in redshirt freshman Drew Mestemaker, who won the starting job in the offseason despite arriving at UNT as a walk-on who had not started a game at QB since ninth grade. Mestemaker is the leader of the offense with over 3,000 passing yards, 23 touchdowns and just four INTs. Mestemaker ranks inside the top-10 among FBS players in pass yards, pass TDs, passing efficiency, total offense, completions and points responsible for.

Morris has recruited Texas and so has his staff. Pokes Report has already learned that Morris’ defensive coordinator Skylar Cassity is coming with Morris. Cassity has coached at a number of schools including Texas Tech and Missouri State. He has coached against Oklahoma State at a time where his brother Braden Cassity was playing for the Cowboys at tight end. Braden Cassity had originally signed with Oklahoma State as a defensive end out of Austin Westlake. Skylar and Braden Cassity are the sons of Mike Cassity, who was a defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State under Bob Simmons. 

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Greg Richmond coaching at Oklahoma State.

The current defensive ends coach at North Texas is Greg Richmond, who played at Oklahoma State from 2000-03 and then coached on Mike Gundy’s staff from 2018-23. It is expected that Richmond will be heading back to Stillwater as well. 

The rest of the staff will be interesting and will be determined as Morris settles in at Oklahoma State. It is expected that he will bring his football general manager Raj Murti. Murti has received national attention this fall as North Texas continued to have success on the field. Murti was trained by Dana Holgorsen when he was head coach at the University of Houston.

Holgorsen and Morris go back to his playing days at Texas Tech. They have stayed close as has Morris to other Tech alumni like Lincoln Riley, Kliff Kingsbury, and Sonny Cumbie. Morris was a teammate of current Texas Tech chairman of their Board of Regents and major financial contributor Cody Campbell. Back when Holgorsen was at Oklahoma State in 2010 he often spoke of Morris calling him by the nickname that Holgorsen and the late Mike Leach put on Morris, “the Elf.”

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Eric Morris at Texas Tech as a player.

Morris was a versatile, all-around player during his four seasons as a Red Raider wide receiver (2005-08). He was an All-Big 12 punt returner as a senior and was also a member of the 2007 Academic All-Big 12 first team.

Morris arrived at Tech following a stellar prep career at Shallowater High School where he was named the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal All-South Plains Super Team Offensive Player of the Year as a senior in 2003. 

Morris received his bachelor’s degree in communications studies from Texas Tech in 2008. He and his wife, Maggie, are parents to two sons, Jack and George.

We now wait to see what the itinerary is for Morris after the Mean Green plays Temple on Friday at 2:30 on ESPN.