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MORGANTOWN – Starting over.
That’s the story in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where Eric Morris retraces the steps Rich Rodriguez took all the way back in 2001 when he replaced the legendary Don Nehlen at West Virginia.
“Such a unique time for me and being in my first year, but such an amazing past seven or eight months for me. It’s been a whirlwind, obviously. There’s a ton of storylines going into the season for our ball club,” he said.
Morris takes over from Mike Gundy, a former Oklahoma State quarterback who took over one of the toughest jobs in college football as coach of the other team in Oklahoma in 2005 and stayed into the 2025 season, going to 18 consecutive bowl games and putting together a 170-90 record with the Cowboys before going 4-11 in his final 15 games.
The firing was a stunning end to a great career and had even Colorado coach and Hall of Fame player Deion Sanders wondering about the profession.
“I feel bad for our coach from Oklahoma State,” Sanders said at the time. “Mike Gundy is a winner, man. Wasn’t he just in the championship a few years ago? You do that to Mike Gundy? To Mike Gundy?
“If anybody out there that knows him and he gets this message: Coach, I love you, I appreciate you, I respect you. You are a hero to me and I love everything about you. All the meetings that I attended, he sits at the head of the table. He’s the Grand Poobah. He’s the guy that gives us direction and correction. I love him.”
It’s a tough spot for Morris, who will be one month shy of his 40th birthday when Oklahoma State plays at WVU to open its Big 12 season. He comes from North Texas, where WVU Athletic Director Wren Baker came from, and was 22-16 but was hired after an 11-2 season and Top 25 ranking from AP in 2025.
He earned his spurs at Texas Tech, however, as a punt returner and wide receiver as a player in Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense and then was offensive coordinator there for five years, coaching Pat Mahomes before serving as head coach at the FCS school for four years, leading to the North Texas job.
Like Rodriguez last season, he is starting completely starting over from scratch, remaking the roster for the Cowboys. He had 87 new players on his roster and 19 of the more than 60 transfers came with him from North Texas.
“Yeah, I’m a little bit old school,” he 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. It might be splitting up playing different activities, wiffle ball, going bowling, you know, coming over to my house to swim. Just different activities where we spend intentional time together.
“I think that’s one thing that’s lost not only today in just athletics, but just in college students in general,” he continued. “With technology, so many people are addicted to their phones, to video games. And I think since COVID, people just don’t have the same college experience they used to have.”
He sees his situation as similar to coaching in Morgantown.
“I think what’s really cool about Stillwater is it’s such a small, tight-knit community that our kids actually go out and do a lot of activities together. You know, whether it’s golfing, fishing, or out at the gun range shooting skeets, there are so many unique things to do together.”
But now he has to put it all together into a football team, something he’s familiar with having done it, but on a different level.
“Yeah, this was a super unique one for me. Obviously when I went to Incarnate Word, a place with no history, they had no success at all. They had only been Division I a couple of years. I think I could come in there really guns ablazing and be able to bring my personality into that place, kind of reset the culture starting in the weight room, building in the offseason, and then ultimately, we were able to have some success that first year,” he said.
“North Texas was a little bit different when I got there, just because they played in a bowl game the year that I got there. Had a six-win team. So it’s a team that had a little bit of success.”
But Oklahoma State is the big show.
“Then this one was so different for me just because, you know, I’ve been in the Big 12 as a player and a coach. Oklahoma State was so good in my memories. I remember going to Boone Pickens, how rowdy it was, the paddles slapping against the wall, the student section on fire,” he said, again a similar situation to the one Rodriguez took over.
“You know, my memories are always good, and obviously during those times, there were a bunch of eight-win teams, nine-win teams, 10-win teams, who won the Big 12 in 2012. I didn’t have any of these bad memories.”
His job is the same as Rodriguez’s, returning to the respect that once was Oklahoma State’s.
“Now, when I got there, I had to sit back and realize that there had been kids that are in this program that have been there for two years that hadn’t experienced walking in that locker room after winning a conference game. So that was something really unique for me because my memories were great, and then I had to realize a bunch of our players’ memories haven’t been great in the recent past.”
With that comes pressure.
“Yeah, there’s definitely urgency from me right now just because I love winning, and I love competing. As soon as there’s not urgency from me to put out a good product, I’m going to find something else to do with my time. That’s what I love so much.
“I think in a world of college football right now where everything seems that it’s become so transactional, like, living it day-to-day, I see the transformational side of it, right? I’m able to see – I’ve never really been at a place with resources.”