30 Pages of Notes and Late-Night Shakes: Eric Morris Opens Up on Some of His Processes

STILLWATER — Still a month out from the season opener, Eric Morris said he already has 30 pages of notes on Tulsa and he’s close to having the same on Oregon.

Morris met with reporters following Oklahoma State’s first fall practice on Wednesday, and he was fairly open about some of his different processes as a coach — like his early-bird film watching.

“I’m an early-morning riser, so usually I’m sitting in my chair anywhere between 4:30 and 5 a.m. to be able to get ahead and watch tape,” Morris said. “But countless hours, and then it’s something even at night, now we have the capability and the technology that I can take cut-ups home with me. After we put the kids to bed, I can lay in bed and sit there on an iPad and go through some cut-ups.”

As will be the case almost any time Morris talks this season, he was asked about budding-star quarterback Drew Mestemaker.

Morris poked fun at Mestemaker’s fall camp mustache but also discussed how much further along Mestemaker is going into his redshirt sophomore season. In discussing that, Morris (also the Cowboys’ play-caller) broke down his process for how the Saturday play-sheet gets put together with some collaboration.

“We always meet on Thursdays and the quarterback brings in the thing and he’s gonna list out his favorite plays and he’s gonna list out his five least favorite plays,” Morris said. “And usually, those five least favorite plays get cut, and it doesn’t matter if I love the play as the guy calling it. If he’s not comfortable with it, there’s no reason I should try to force it.

“We’re so far along in that in operation, and I already know there’s certain concepts he doesn’t like, doesn’t see well, doesn’t fit his style. He always wants answers and checkdowns. So we try to get those where they’re readily available for him.”

Like Mike Gundy drawing up plays on an equipment trunk in Columbia, Missouri circa 2008, the offensive side of the ball gets more of Morris’ attention, given he is the playcaller. But that doesn’t mean he’s totally hands off with Skyler Cassity’s defense.

Morris noted that he gives Cassity some freedoms, but those freedoms take streamlined communication.

“I give coach Cassity a lot of autonomy, and he’s able to make a lot of decisions,” Morris said. “For it to work that way, we’ve got to meet a ton and be on the same page, right? We’ll designate time throughout camp. We’ll sit down and we’ll just go down the entire roster. Feel like that’s a good way. At times, I’ll go into the D-staff room and just get a quick runaround about where our kids are, what they’re doing well, what we need to improve on. And in team meeting segments, I know the defensive verbiage. So I think it’s good for me to get up there and to address the defense, for them to know I know what I’m talking about.”

And it wasn’t just on-the-field aspects Morris was open about.

Between the indoor and outdoor portions of the Sherman E. Smith Training Center sat a snack bar of sorts with everything from fruit snacks to pickles or the players to grab.

Morris discussed how much weight guys can lose in a given practice day, especially in the Oklahoma August heat. But by the end of the day, the guys are expected to get that weight back on — one way or another.

“They weigh in before practice, they weigh in after practice and they weigh in at night before a team meeting,” Morris said. “If they haven’t gotten their weight back, they stay up here and they drink shakes with us. Nutrition is a huge part to what we do here.”