The Scariest Part of Drew Mestemaker? He’s Getting Even More Comfortable in Eric Morris’ Offense

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MORGANTOWN, West Virginia — Drew Mestemaker said his favorite throw of Oklahoma State’s 41-24 win against West Virginia was his 52-yard bomb to Chris Barnes straight out of halftime.

And the architect of said play was none other than Mestemaker himself.

“They tried to come out and load the box, and kinda disrespecting Chris out there, putting him one-on-one press,” Mestemaker said. “So, I checked him a go ball, and that one fired me up pretty good.”

West Virginia’s first half gameplan seemed to be to take away the explosive pass plays, playing umbrella coverage and forcing the Cowboys to keep it on the ground.

It’s not a poor idea against a quarterback of Mestemaker’s caliber, but the issue was that the Cowboys ran for 135 yards on 6.1 yards a pop in the first half with that light box. So, when Mestemaker got out of the halftime locker room and noticed the Mountaineers’ gameplan had changed, he wasted no time exposing it.

After having four completions between 20 and 28 yards in the first half, Mestemaker had six pass plays of at least 27 yards in the second half. Four of those plays went for 40 or more.

Oklahoma State coach Eric Morris praised Mestemaker’s patience postgame in that he didn’t try to force things when the Mountaineers were clearly trying to take away the pass.

The Mestemaker-Morris tandem is seemingly starting to think with one mind.

“I feel like in this offense, I’m just so comfortable owith what Coach Morris is gonna call and what he’s thinking,” Mestemaker said. “So, I can kind of feel when the big play is coming, too.”

As elite of a play-caller as Morris is, though, Mestemaker is comfortable switching stuff on his own at the line.

That check to the Barnes go-ball wasn’t the first time Mestemaker successfully made a check in this young season. In a sit down with Dave Hunziker last week, Morris said Mestemaker threw two touchdowns against Murray State on plays he changed at the line of scrimmage.

“I think Drew’s gotten us in and out of some bad things,” Morris told Hunziker. “Whenever I make a bad call, he’s been able to be the magic eraser back there. … Having his brain back there running the whole operation on offense, I think helps.”

It got to the point sometimes where it would drive the OSU fanbase crazy when Mike Gundy would say a quarterback needed to play about 15 games before things started slowing down for him. And all of the quarterbacks Gundy was talking about in those instances had some banked high school experience.

As has been highlighted many times, Mestemaker wasn’t his high school’s starting quarterback. Saturday’s game against West Virginia marked his 19th start at the position.

Through four games, Mestemaker is already at 1,271 passing yards this season. That’s a little more than 200 yards behind Zane Flores’ nine-game total from 2025.

As good as Mestemaker is right now, he’s only getting better.

“Maybe I would’ve checked it (last year),” Mestemaker said. “But, I just feel so confident in the offense right now that I feel like whenever I check those plays, I feel really good about making them.”