Eric Morris Using Mock Game Week To Nail Down Pregame Routines, Sideline Logistics Ahead of Season Opener

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STILLWATER — Outside of the on-field play, there are still quite a few ducks the Cowboys have to get in a row in preparation for their season opener.

Eric Morris is using this week as a mock game week ahead of Oklahoma State’s Sept. 5 season-opener at Tulsa, with Morris going so far as to have the team in uniforms this upcoming Saturday and going through what their pregame warmup routine will be.

“Our kids don’t love it just because it seems so long, right?” Morris said. “And the anxiety starts to build up. But I think anxiety is good because there is going to be anxiety in that first game.

“It’s probably more of a question for a nutritionist or a scientist, but we’ve had cramps the first game every year I played, and sometimes it hasn’t even been that hot. And I think that’s due to the kids working themselves out, so we like to put them through the waiting period of what’s going on, to truly come out as a team, do all of our stretching, our pregame routine, and then we put everybody on the sideline, and then can actually practice the situational stuff that naturally comes up in games.”

What happens between the lines is obviously the most important, but it’s good for the Cowboys to get a run-through of what it will be like just outside of the lines.

With Morris calling plays, neither OSU play-caller will be in the press box, as he and defensive coordinator Skyler Cassity will be on the sideline. Offensive coordinator/QB coach Sean Brophy will also be on the sideline so he can be with Drew Mestemaker as he comes off the field between series.

Morris shouted out Kevin Kilmer, OSU’s assistant quarterbacks coach, as a guy who will be important in the box. Kilmer was a Co-OC at Bowling Green for three seasons and coordinated the Angelo State offense from 2019 through 2025, a stretch where Angelo State averaged more than 30 points a game in each year he called the offense.

“We’ll put our coaches in the box, being responsible for certain things coming in and out,” Morris said. “And then two, we haven’t been on the sideline. IPads are such a huge deal now. The technology and being able to relay information because you have instant access to that. We will have our coaches actually sit down and go over how they’re going to sit down, how they’re going to present the material to our players. So there’s just a lot of little things that I think that you know we need to be really detailed and address.”

That’s a lot of detail about things the average fan probably doesn’t think much about.

The iPad element is interesting. Back when Mike Gundy was a play-calling head coach, tablets weren’t things. Gundy’s famous moment drawing up plays on an equipment trunk in that game against Missouri probably wouldn’t happen in the modern day. He’d instead be looking at an iPad.

“I never go sit down with our players, and if I need a relay, I have a headset,” Morris said. “But I try to stay available to always be able to call important timeouts, make big decisions on third downs, fourth downs, on what’s happened with special teams-wise.

“But I think that’s what’s so important for me to trust our defensive coordinator and our special teams coordinator and give them the ability to really think on their own and call this game the way that they see it. We tell the ref before every game, Coach Cassity has the ability to call timeouts, and so that’s something that’s probably different than a lot of places where the head coach only calls them. There’s small adjustments that you have to make, but I try to never be sitting down and not available for Coach Cassity and (special teams coordinator Drew) Svoboda.”

It’s all interesting insight to the attention to detail that Morris has. Although this is his first Power Conference head job, you can tell it isn’t his first rodeo.