What Oregon’s Players Said About Oklahoma State Entering Saturday

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After failing what many viewed as a practice test, the Cowboys are being thrown into the final.

Oklahoma State hosts a talented Oregon squad at 11 a.m. Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium. After beating Boise State 34-27 on Saturday, the Ducks actually dropped from No. 2 to No. 6 in the AP Poll.

When these teams met last season in Eugene, it wasn’t competitive. Oregon stormed to a 69-3 win in a game where the OSU offense mustered just 144 yards of total offense. A few weeks later, Mike Gundy was out and the Cowboys’ roster evaporated over the coming months, leading to this big reset with new coach Eric Morris.

When the Oregon players met with the media on Tuesday, it didn’t sound as if they were leaning on last year’s result.

“It’s a whole different team,” running back Jordon Davison said. “Whole new roster. I believe they have like 90 new players, so we’re not in that mindset of, ‘Oh, this is gonna be like last year.’ We’re in a mindset of we’re playing a really good team and a really good coach.”

Despite the closer-than-anticipated score, the Ducks’ offense had a nice day against Boise State, gaining 497 yards from scrimmage — 378 through the air and 119 on the ground.

Ziyare Addison is Oregon’s left tackle. Only a redshirt freshman, Addison was a four-star recruit in the 2025 recruiting class, taking visits to UCLA, Georgia and Florida before committed to the Ducks.

“They kind of remind me of Boise State, with the stems and the pops they have,” Addison said of OSU’s defense. “I feel like this offensive line group is really special, and (offensive line) coach (A’lique) Terry and coach (Dan) Lanning are always gonna put us in position to win, so I’m just trusting in the game plan that they have, and I feel like we’re gonna execute like we did against Boise State.”

Before the results of last weekend, the college football world at large was excited to see how Oregon’s stout defense would handle the high-powered attack of Morris and quarterback Drew Mestemaker. But after the Cowboys scored just 10 points against Tulsa, a lot of that hype has dwindled.

The Cowboys narrowly outgained Tulsa, totaling 368 yards. In 49 attempts, Mestemaker threw for 241 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. The OSU ground attack managed 127 yards on 37 carries, with running back Caleb Hawkins providing 79 of those yards on 18 totes.

“I feel like that just comes down to doing my job, making sure my eyes are on point, I’m aligned, looking at my keys and just doing my job,” linebacker Dylan Williams said. “Respectable running back, for sure. He’s a bigger-bodied power back, so like I said, coming from corrections from last game, our defense feels like we really need to fix up tackling, so we’ve been working on that every single week, just to make sure we’re nitpicking our tackling.”