Oklahoma State Football Should Follow This Big 12 Program's Successful Path
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
New Oklahoma State football coach Eric Morris likes to say that he began his career by committing "career suicide" and taking a job at Incarnate word.
Several years later, that move has paid off handsomely. He's now the head coach of one of the biggest programs in the country and one that just three seasons ago went to the Big 12 Championship game for the second time in three years.
The Cowboys have known winning for a long time. But former head coach Mike Gundy's final two seasons saw the program lose its way. Now it's up to Morris to find the path back. The transfer portal and NIL can make that easier and he's embraced both in a way that his predecessor didn't. He also imported much of the coaching staff that helped him succeed at North Texas to Oklahoma State.
It is rare to see a program grom from 1-11 to conference contention in one year. But there is a more realistic path for the Cowboys, one blazed by one of their opponents this season. How Willie Fritz has rebuilt the Houston Cougars is worth emulating.
The Houston Trajectory
Fritz has a reputation as a winner, going back to his days as a junior college head coach at Blinn College in Brenham, Texas. He's coached at nearly every level of the game and has more than 250 wins to show for it. When Houston hired him in 2024, he was coming off a second straight American Conference title game at Tulane. But he was also hired late in the cycle, and he dealt with many of the same obstacles Morris did this offseason.
The transfer portal was already spinning when he took over at Houston. Fritz pulled every lever to find talent. His recruiting class ended up with 17 enrollees, a No. 52 ranking at 247Sports and his transfer portal ranking was No. 35 from the same service. Unlike Morris, he was only able to bring a few former Tulane players with him.
His success was modest in Year 1. He matched the four wins of former head coach Dana Holgorsen in 2023, but Fritz won one more league game, including a win over then-ranked Kansas State.
Fritz parlayed modest success – and more runway to recruit – into a better team. His quarterback situation was a mess and he identified Conner Weigman, a former five-star from the Houston area who never caught on at Texas A&M, as the right player to fix it. Fritz also recruited better. His Class of 2025 was No. 41 at 247Sports and his transfer class was No. 27. This time he could better address needs.
With a little patience and hard work, Fritz and the Cougars turned things around last season. They went from a four-win team to a 10-win team, remained competitive in the Big 12 until the end of the season and concluded it with a Texas Bowl win over LSU. Fritz also landed one of the biggest recruiting prizes of the Class of 2026 in quarterback Keisean Henderson, considered the No. 1 overall player in the country by 247Sports. He'll wait for a year behind Weigman.
Entering his third season Fritz has turned the Big 12's doormat into a championship game contender. For Morris and the Cowboys, that's the path to emulate.
Oklahoma State shouldn't turn down raging success this season, but that shouldn't be how the season is measured, either. Morris can turn a modestly successful 2026 into a bigger 2027 and put the Cowboys on a path to Big 12 contention by 2028. All they have to do is follow the template that Houston has built the past two years.
Today's best reads
- The Best-Case Scenario For the 2026 Oklahoma State Cowboys
- Eric Morris Turns 'Career Suicide' into Coaching Oklahoma State Football
- What Ethan Wesloski Believes He Owes Oklahoma State Players That Stayed
- Oklahoma State's Drew Mestemaker Excited About Wide-Open Big 12 Conference
- What Oklahoma State's Massive Roster Turnover Means to Cowboys' 2026 Success
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/oklahomastate as Oklahoma State Football Should Follow This Big 12 Program's Successful Path.
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos