Eric Morris Meets With Media, Talks Roster and Staff Rebuild and Chemistry

STILLWATER – Oklahoma State released its complete roster of 105 players on Wednesday morning, a few hours after the conclusion of the February Signing Day for Cowboy football. Shortly after that, head coach Eric Morris met with the media for nearly an hour, detailing the ins and outs of a complete overhaul of the program.

As I wrote about this morning, the roster features 81 new players, with only 24 players returning from last year’s roster and 27 incoming freshmen, meaning 54 players were brought in out of the portal. 

There were several position groups not retained, which included the quarterback room. So, the last two months for Morris and Co. have nearly exclusively been spent on putting together a roster of experience out of the transfer portal.

“The last two months basically have been all about constructing a new roster. I think anytime you have 81 new players - which might be a record in college football, I don't know, some of you guys probably know that better than me - but it's something. We've been used to it on a little bit of a smaller scale at North Texas over the last couple years. After year one, we had 74 new players. Last year, 65, I think. And so it's not abnormal to have a big turnover in college football right now. Now this is going to be a little bit larger than, hopefully, what we have in the future. Hopefully this is something great to build on. 

“But I think when we looked at this from the get-go, we needed to add some pieces that have played a lot of football on this team. As we got into doing that, that's something I think our coaches were able to do really effectively when we look at the number of snaps played and then we want our roster to be in a good spot. As far as seniors to juniors, sophomores to freshmen, that way, when we start building a program, hopefully, you're able to take 20-to-25 high school kids every single year, which is something that will strive to do here. Right now, we feel like we're in a really good spot as far as where we're at right now. By the numbers right now, 33 seniors on this roster have played a ton of football, 25 juniors, 20 sophomores and 27 freshmen. The majority of all these upper classmen and then a bunch of these younger guys we're able to bring in have played a significant amount of football already, wherever that might be, whether it's another Division I institution, a junior college institution, Division II. And so that's kind of been the secret to our success in the past: Finding guys who have played meaningful snaps somewhere.”

With a virtually new roster and new coaching staff, there’s a big need for chemistry and coming together as a unit. Morris mentioned ‘Football School.’

“We did what we call ‘Football School’ this week. And so, for us to get back up here, finally, in front of this group as a whole, our coaching staff, not on the road, trying to put this roster together, we've been able to start teaching. And then after we get done teaching, we go and we all eat breakfast together and start learning about everybody's stories, right? And that's something that's so unique about football, and something I truly love, I call it the melting pot of the locker room, and especially in this day and age. We put together 81 new players combined with 20-something returners. And then somehow and some way, we got to get to know each other and all pull in the same direction, go out 12 Saturdays a year and be willing to sacrifice for one another. That's the unique part and the most fun for me. We'll be really intentional over the course of the next four or five months, not only teaching football and teaching schemes, but also spending quality time together, getting to know each other's whys? What ticks? What makes them tick? You know? What motivates them? 

“I think naturally, as we get that going, the football starts up here in a month and a half. You know, when we get into spring ball, we get 15 chances to get out there and compete with one another and learn and grow and kind of see where we're at. The cool thing right now is we don't have many guys that aren't here right now. You know, I think of the guys that are coming in, I'll find it. I got someone on a piece of paper … so only nine guys will come in the summer. Back in the day, there used to be 25-30 guys that would be joining in the summer. So, the majority of our roster will be here for us to spend time and use this next four or five months to really grow the chemistry of this team.”

This is really the first time we’ve gotten a chance to talk to coach Morris. Sure, he met with the public and a group of the media after his introductory press conference. But it was just getting to know the man and what the process of him showing up to Stillwater was like. 

We’ll learn more about Morris over the coming weeks as he starts spring football and holds a few open practices. We’ll also learn more about him once we all show back up for fall camp come August.