Spring Observation: Eric Morris Is a Nice Mix of Old School and New School

STILLWATER — For much of Mike Gundy’s long and illustrious tenure as the Cowboys’ coach, he was considered a bit of a new-school cavalier nationally.

His offenses were part of an evolution of the sport, an evolution that first started at the college level before even the NFL was using more spread concepts. Gundy was sitting on equipment trunks drawing up offensive plays while the defense he was also in charge of was on the field.

But if you examined Gundy on the day to day, you’d know there was a good mix of old-school beliefs in there, too.

A former college quarterback, Gundy enjoyed controlling the ball on the ground — a fact evident by all the talent he produced at running back like Doak Walker winner Ollie Gordon or 2019 national rushing leader Chuba Hubbard. He’d constantly tell stories about and praise Bill Snyder, preaching special teams, discipline and toughness.

But the game continues to change. Gundy wasn’t the quick enough in adapting to the NIL era. When Eric Morris was hired at Oklahoma State, it felt like a huge shift — like OSU was had gone from old school to new school. But in a spring of examining Morris running the OSU program, there’s some old school there, too.

“I think one of the most important ingredients to building a culture is the weight room in my opinion,” Morris said after Saturday’s spring game. “It’s always been that way and I think just back to the longevity of the guys before us and Coach [Rob] Glass was such an instrumental part of that, right? And the toughness and grittiness and talking to former players, like that was real here. So, us bringing coach [Bryan] Kegans, who’s a former offensive lineman, teammate of mine and has the grittiness and the attitude to be able to still hold the kids accountable and discipline when needed.

“We’re all in this thing together. We have early morning weight lifts with the guys right now, and if you’re on time and they’re late, they have to pay some pretty heavy consequences. Even I think this era of obviously the financial piece of it, the transfer portal, some coaches have gone backwards and gotten a little bit softer on kids, and honestly, I’ve probably gone the other way and a little bit harder and saying, ‘Hey, you have an obligation to this program, to this school, to your teammates and we’re gonna run this thing and it’s gonna be a pretty tight ship.’”

So, that sounds rather old school, but how about this Morris quote from April 1:

“ROI (return on investment) is like a real thing in college football,” Morris said on April 1. “And you know these guys, you got to look at us as an investment because we are investing in these guys. At the end of the day, when these Saturdays come in the fall, we need our money to be on the field.”

It doesn’t get much more new school than that.

Although the means of roster-building and player acquisition have changed, there are aspects in building a good football team that remain the same. No matter how much money a player is making, football is a disciplined, team game. This point was probably best explained by Florida State defensive line transfer James Williams after the spring game.

“We live in a microwave culture,” Williams said. “Everybody wants change immediately versus over time and it’s affecting everything that we do, not just in sports but in culture as well. I think we’ve adapted to that. We’re a really close, tight-knit group and we’ve been like that from the beginning. We knew what it would take with 80 new people.”

Morris’ mix of old and new isn’t just in the off-the-field preparation either.

One of his biggest mentor was Mike Leach, who Morris played under. Like with Gundy, Leach was an offensive innovator, a spread mastermind. Over the years, defenses have figured out ways to at least slow down that offensive firepower, but the gist of the system still works.

“We want to be able to run the football more than what (Mike) Leach did,” Morris told Dave Hunziker last week. “Now, the way we teach our passing game and the reads and the progressions and how we teach the quarterbacks is all from the stuff that I’ve learned from Mike years and years ago. Now, it might look a little different. We’re not as stagnant as Mike was. We run more formations and more motions and bunches and stacks, but ultimately they’re the same plays.”

So, while OSU has taken a step into the modern age of college football with Morris’ hiring, the program isn’t abandoning tried and true aspects that make a successful football team regardless of the era.