STILLWATER – No. 18 Oklahoma State is set for a top 20 showdown with No. 20 Houston on the road on Saturday. The Pokes are 4-1 on the season, the Cougars 5-1, with kickoff scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT on FOX.
Head coach Eric Morris met with the media on Tuesday to put a bow on UCF and look ahead to Houston.
“This is gonna be a great test for us right now,” Eric Morris said of Houston. “I think Willie Fritz, if I was an AD right now, he might be at the top of my list. I don’t care where I was. I just have so much admiration for the way he’s done it, just because I’ve taken kind of a similar path — maybe it was a little faster for me. I don’t know, he has 200 or some odd wins, 266 or something. There ain’t no way in hell I’m gonna get to 266, I can tell you that right now. I’ll be retired and doing something else at that point in my life. But it’s just been fun for me to watch him and a guy like him. He’s been JUCO, he’s been D II, he’s been Group of Five, he’s been FCS and now he’s at Power Four and all he’s done is built programs and win everywhere he’s been. And he does it with different schemes, but also always having the same key ingredients to it, in my opinion.
“First thing you turn on the tape, they’re solid on all three sides of the ball as far as schematically. Coached really well, play extremely hard. They want to control the ball in everywhere he’s been, right? He’s done that in different ways with different offenses and different personnels. He’s done it running the option, with ground and pound. Done it with running quarterbacks, with throwing quarterbacks. I just think extremely well coached, team that does things the right way. All the categories that I think coaches preach to their team all the time, year in year out they’re good at those things. They’re good at stopping the run. They’re good at establishing the run. They’re good on third down. They’re good in the red zone. All those key things. Play really good, complementary football in all three phases. Special teams is something he takes great pride in.
“I think right now, this will be a great test for our ball club. We’re battle-tested too. We’ve been through a lot this year so far, and we’ve played in some big games. We’ve played in great atmospheres. This is where I started my career, was at the University of Houston. I have great memories there. Case Keenum was our quarterback. I remember thinking coaching football was the easiest thing ever just because Case made us right in everything that we did. I went to Washington State the next year and found out it wasn’t that easy. Excited about this matchup right now, but I think your team should be growing throughout the entirety of the season.”
