Trying to scout Oklahoma State after one game requires more imagination than usual because there really isn’t much value in treating last season’s Cowboys as the starting point. Normally by Week 2, the previous season gives you a reliable baseline. Personnel changes, coordinators change and schemes evolve, but enough remains intact to understand what a team wants to be.
Oklahoma State is almost the opposite. Eric Morris took over a 1-11 program and essentially rebuilt it from scratch, bringing in 91 newcomers while retaining only a small fraction of last year’s roster. That means Oregon isn’t really preparing for the 2025 Cowboys as much as it is preparing for a new program wearing an old uniform.
The more useful exercise is studying what Morris and defensive coordinator Skyler Cassity built at North Texas, looking at the personnel they brought with them and then using last week’s loss at Tulsa as the first real evidence of how all of those pieces fit together in Stillwater. When you look at Oklahoma State that way, the matchup becomes much more interesting than the 24-10 loss would suggest.
There is legitimate talent on this roster, particularly at quarterback, running back and receiver, and Morris has already proven that the core of this offense can produce at an elite level. At the same time, Tulsa exposed weaknesses that line up unusually well with what Oregon does best, and that tension is probably the best place to begin.
