Inside the great North Texas migration to Stillwater
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Caleb Hawkins took a moment to soak it all in. Exactly one year ago, his most recent football game had been at North Rock Creek High School in Shawnee, OK. He was a true freshman running back eager to capitalize on his lone FBS offer at North Texas, hoping to find a lick of playing time while adjusting to the speed of the collegiate game.
On Tuesday, Jul. 7, 2026, Hawkins’ agenda couldn’t have been more different. He was boarding a private jet from Stillwater to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex as one of four Oklahoma State representatives for Big 12 Media Days in Frisco, TX, spending eight hours propped up in front of cameras and microphones for the national spotlight.
“I mean, I have a hard time getting in small spaces,” Hawkins said of the plane ride. “It was a little strange for me, I’m not gonna lie.”
Hawkins’ whirlwind Tuesday in Frisco demonstrates how dramatically life changed for many North Texas players and coaches due to one simple announcement on Nov. 25, 2025.
During that week of Thanksgiving, head coach Eric Morris accepted the head coaching vacancy at Oklahoma State. Despite the in-season arrangement, Morris committed to remaining at North Texas through its upcoming season finale vs. Temple, as well as its conference championship matchup vs. Tulane and any potential College Football Playoff games.
Morris said his biggest regret of the move to Stillwater was watching the news leak outside the walls of North Texas’ facilities before telling his players in-person. Even though it didn’t unfold in ideal fashion, his players still respected the way he approached his exit.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to handle it from Coach Morris’ perspective,” outside linebacker Ethan Wesloski said. “He wanted to tell us first, but news broke it first, so we knew about 30 minutes before which sucked. He came in and was like, ‘I’m taking this job. This is the move for my career and my family. Let’s not get anything twisted. We’re gonna win this game. We’re gonna win the American Conference Championship. We’ll make the playoffs. We’ll make a run.’ He was very adamant about finishing this game, one week at a time, and going to win as much as we can.”
Originally, Morris planned to stay with the Mean Green through the postseason. But after North Texas fell to Tulane in the American Championship, the two schools agreed to let the coach fully migrate to Stillwater. Later that December, North Texas concluded its winningest season in program history at 12-2 with a New Mexico Bowl triumph over San Diego State. Shortly after the Mean Green returned home, the transfer portal opened — a time of year Morris dreaded during his three seasons in Denton.
“The one thing that’s been frustrating for me the last couple years at North Texas and at the ‘G-6’ level is the resources to be able to retain talent year in and year out. It’s something that didn’t sit well with me early on. It’s something that aggravated me.”
In January 2026, one of college football’s greatest mass migrations of the transfer portal era ensued. But this time, it benefited the head coach on the move.
There was a noticeable uptick in I-35 traffic on the 220-mile journey from Denton to Stillwater throughout the month of January. Twenty members of the North Texas roster took official visits to Oklahoma State, and 19 committed, including six all-conference selections and nine players that logged at least six starts in 2025. Luring the Mean Green up north was made easier since Morris brought a significant portion of his staff with him. Of the 42 new members on the operations staff, 35 arrived from North Texas including every coordinator and position coach, save for wide receivers coach Nick Edwards.
“I knew pretty early on, even before he took the job, that Coach was gonna get a new job,” Wesloski said. “It was pretty evident. I was thinking I respect this guy so much and his staff that I couldn’t really see myself playing for anyone else. I took a look in the portal, but those guys were always number one for me. Like, there’s gonna be no way somebody beats you guys out. Just being able to play for him has been awesome.”
Wesloski took his official visit alongside quarterback Drew Mestemaker, running back Caleb Hawkins, and wide receiver Wyatt Young. The day after roaming the campus, they discussed their plans over the phone. One sentiment was shared among all four North Texas stars — they were sold on a future in Stillwater.
In 2025, Mestemaker led the entire FBS in passing yards as a redshirt freshman and tied for second nationally in passing touchdowns. He realized he would have endless transfer opportunities after a storybook season where he claimed American Conference Offensive Player of the Year honors. Prior to Thanksgiving week, landing in Stillwater wasn’t necessarily a vision of his. However, playing under Morris was the only future he saw. After all, Morris was the coach that took a chance on the walk-on who hadn’t started a game at quarterback since ninth grade when arriving at North Texas.
“The school’s obviously had its history, but Coach Morris is really the person I trust and I trust with my career,” Mestemaker said. “I feel like he was the final decision.”
Once Morris’ coaching staff and roster were settled in their new home, then came the tough part — integrating the roster. But the 40-year old head coach had an idea to fully transform the green and white contingent of his roster to orange and black.
“From our very first team meeting, all the North Texas guys were sitting in the front right,” Morris said. “And the first thing I did when I addressed the team was I made everyone stand up, move, and sit by somebody they didn’t know so we could immediately start forming new relationships. It’s not about us and them. It’s about Oklahoma State.”
And that’s how two teams became blended into one. The North Texas transplants that were scattered around the room introduced themselves to incumbent Cowboys and transfers from elsewhere. That specific moment was Wesloski’s first introduction to linebackers Isaiah Chisom, Tate Romney, Trip White, and Jack Puckett — four of his closest friends on the defense. Establishing such camaraderie is the foundation for Morris’ team-building approach, which can be especially challenging given Oklahoma State’s record 87 newcomers in one offseason.
“I’m a little bit old school,” Morris said. “The way I like to build my teams is we intentionally spend time together. There’s nothing flashy with it. It might be mandatory breakfast together, sitting at a different table with a different coach, splitting up and playing different activities like wiffle ball or bowling, or coming over my house to swim… If you came in our locker room right now and just paid attention to the way the guys interacted with one another, you’d think these guys had been around each other for years. Not just the North Texas guys, but everyone together.”
Still, being surrounded by a litany of North Texas players with established team chemistry, inside jokes, and shared experiences can make others feel like outsiders at first. There’s enough Mean Green influence in Stillwater to the point where fifth-year Cowboy defensive end Jaleel Johnson wondered if he was the one who transferred this offseason.
“It definitely felt like I transferred without moving anywhere,” Johnson said. “An entire new staff, 80 new guys. All my friends and everyone I came in with pretty much left. So I was kind of worrying if I wanted to stay or not.”
But Morris wasn’t in the business of refurbishing the entire roster. There were several members of the 2025 Oklahoma State roster he called in hopes of retaining, and Johnson was one of them.
“The biggest reason I stayed was when Morris got the job, he made an effort to call me,” said Johnson, who also was enthused about reuniting with Greg Richmond, who served as Oklahoma State’s defensive line coach during his true freshman campaign in 2022. “(Morris) told me he wanted me to be here. He wanted me to help right the ship. It was an easy decision.”
Johnson committed to an Oklahoma State program fresh off a 12-2 record and No. 7 finish. In each of his first two years, his team spent time within the top 15 of the AP Poll — a familiar place for the Cowboys to reside over a two-decade span. Despite the unprecedented stretch of losing in 2024 and 2025, the North Texas players recognize the longer-tenured veterans on the roster like Johnson reveled in consistent success not too long ago, which is something they can lean on as well.
“Coach Morris does a great job,” Mestemaker said. “He’s not a big mantra guy or ‘this is how we do things.’ He’s like, ‘whatever we’ve gotta do to win.’ And even the guys that have been here through the not great seasons at Oklahoma State, they’ve been here for a long time, so they’ve been part of the great seasons at Oklahoma State too. We have a lot of guys that have played a lot of football and won a lot of games, and I think that will really help us when we get into the season and into those tough games.”
Another reason for optimism after a 1-11 season is the recent history of the Big 12. Throughout the 2020s decade, it has been branded as the conference of parity, featuring six different champions in a six-year stretch. Just two years ago, Arizona State flipped from 3-9 to a College Football Playoff quarterfinalist. So if it’s anyone’s league, Oklahoma State asks, why not us with this refurbished roster and staff?
“The Big 12’s kind of a conference where there’s nobody really at the top that’s been there multiple years,” Mestemaker said. “There’s a new winner every year. That’s something that excites us. It lets us set our goals high. We think we can win this.”
Oklahoma State may have compiled a 4-20 record across the past two seasons with zero Big 12 victories, but the Mean Green contingent of the roster doesn’t view 2026 as a rebuild. Instead, they view this season as extension of the winning culture established by Morris and his staff at North Texas.
“I think we’re sustaining a culture, because not only between the UNT guys, but we brought in a bunch of guys that know how to win, and they’re accustomed to winning football games,” Wesloski said. “There’s nothing surprising about our culture that we want to win now. There’s no need to wait and rebuild a culture and rebuild a dynamic.”
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