Morris Didn't Dodge Anything, He Took Blame as Tulsa Win Douses Oklahoma State Momentum
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TULSA – I hate the fact that in analyzing football, it is much easier to assign blame sometimes than it is to applaud success. Eric Morris has won more games than he’s lost, but this loss was especially frustrating.
When he sat down afterwards in the interview room at Chapman Stadium he pointed the finger squarely at himself over the 24-10 loss to Tulsa. The Cowboys were a moderate favorite, but trailed almost the entire game.
“We got out coached today, we got out played, out physicaled, we got out schemed at so many different levels to beat us,” Morris said. “We were never able to capture any momentum in the game. I thought the first drive as a good representation in getting the ball down the field and then they were more physical than us on the goal line. We we will go back and watch this as coaches and see what we can do.”
During the game I do my own play-by-play and circle plays that I find questionable and either momentum producers or killers. The opening Oklahoma State drive was 13 plays and 70 yards and ended on a fourth down run at the Tulsa three yard line. Oklahoma State would end up two-of-six on fourth downs and not much better, 5-of-16 on third downs.
Tulsa went down and scored a field goal to go up 3-0.
“As the leader of this program, I called made some bad calls on fourth and short,” Morris said. “You put the fourth down stops and that adds up to maybe six or seven turnovers today. You are not going to win against anybody. I put that in the turnover category and I told the players that was on me.”
In the best way, Morris’ quarterback had his back on the fourth down failures.
“We’ve always been aggressive on fourth down and if we get them, no one is talking about it,” Mestemaker said. “I like those fourth-down tries. We just have to execute.”
Oklahoma State got the ball first in the second half trailing 10-3. It was a great time to establish some momentum, but the drive ended with a Mestemaker fumble on the third play.
“We will be meeting as soon as tonight on how to deal with that.” Morris said. “I know that in warm ups it was 161 degrees on the turf.”
Wide receiver Wyatt Young had eight catches for 84 yards to lead the Cowboys. “I know it was damned hot. Warm up for an hour and half and then play a three hour game in it.”
Later in the third quarter, Morris had Ayo Adeyi carry on a fourth down and former Cowboy Kyran Duhon was licking his chops and made the stop for no gain. Tulsa took over and the finish to that drive was a 21 yard touchdown strike from Baylor Hayes to new TU speedster Oran Singleton Jr. for a 17-3 lead.
Morris is aggressive and won’t apologize for it. He shouldn’t as I think we all favor aggressive coaches.
There will be a lot of folks and a lot of social media garbage that will be on the attack and will stick knives in Eric Morris. It’s way too early and probably way too wrong. This was a bad start.
"You're dang right,” Morris said. “I think, obviously, momentum is everything in sports, and obviously we get on the road and come down to an in-state school, that on paper, we got more resources, we got more history, we got all this stuff, and that's why they play these games.
"For a second year in a row, Tulsa, they reigned supreme on us right now on the football field,” Morris said. “And that's a fact. I'm a fact guy, and I'm always gonna tell you guys the way I feel. There's no way that we don't leave this thing right now and feel all of that momentum come to a screeching halt. We gotta do something to fix that. And two, it's gonna be really, really important, I've always believed, and I've done this numerous places -- it's easy to lead when things are going well and things are good. It's hard to lead when things aren't going well and you get punched in the mouth like that. That's on me to be able to get us back together collectively and regroup and start fixing these problems one at a time."
Eric Morris knows it. It will haunt him until next week when he gets his second opportunity. I will promise you he will be better. His team will be better. The 2026 football season has a long way to go. If I thought the new OSU coach wasn’t accountable then I’d be worried. I’m not worried. I’m eager to see where it goes from here.
