Daily Bullets (Aug. 22): Get Ready to Go For It on Fourth Down

Thanks for stopping by – here’s your daily dose of Oklahoma State sports news.

Three Thoughts

• CBS Sports is picking the Pokes for the Liberty Bowl against Missouri – love the underlying assumption that we’ll win six or seven games (CBS Sports)

• Great interview with Drew Mestemaker, 28-minutes with QB1 (YouTube)

• It’ll be wild to experience this with Eric Morris – he went for it on fourth down more than 2.5 times each game last season (36 times in 14 games).

Quite a change from Mike Gundy, who it felt like had “punt” as one of his three favorite offensive play calls – to go with a wide receiver screen and draw play on third and long .

North Texas went for it on fourth down 36 times last season, which is tied with Alabama and Arizona State for the sixth-most fourth-down attempts in FBS.

The Mean Green converted on 26 of those attempts, the fourth-most fourth-down conversions of any team in the country. [PFB]

Two Quotes

• Gosh it would have been brutal if Mestemaker went to Texas Tech:

Drew Mestemaker on what’s other schools showed interest while in the portal, per @Blutman27

– Oregon – LSU – Michigan – Texas Tech 👀 pic.twitter.com/P9hBlp7IjO — SleeperCFB (@SleeperCFB) August 21, 2026

• Hate to be the junior college coach that made this call – it could have been a pitch to get him onto your squad though:

Mestemaker said when he told a Juco coach he wasn’t going to his school because he was planning to walk on to Sam Houston State (before later changing to UNT), the coach told him “Not everyone can be Baker Mayfield” and scolded him for his decision not to go Juco. Seems like… https://t.co/9D5stIzLxm

— Jake (@JakeWayneSports) August 21, 2026

One Question

• I like this call out that the defense will define OSU’s season (point number three) – do you think the defense or the offensive line is a bigger wildcard?

Non-OSU Bullets

• Russell Westbrook never chilled • After my first Europe trip, I’m soccer-curious. This ranking of the 20 Premier League teams (here’s another one) is helping me orient – AI says Sunderland is the most like Oklahoma State, while Brighton is most like the OKC Thunder and Aston Villa is the best blend. Being an OU fan is polyester. Have a great weekend folks!