Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-from-oklahoma-states-season-opening-loss-to-tulsa/
Can Eric Morris keep a long week from turning into a long season?
We all drank the Kool Aid. All of us. Now comes reality. We could very well be looking at another 1-11 season, and 3 years without a conference win. I can see it happening.
There was nothing encouraging about that debacle. 0% better than last year. Zero. And if that happens, OSU football falls into the abyss. This program is on thin ice, and I can see section two no-shirty become a thing again. Maybe by the 3rd quarter next weekend.
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As much gloom and doom as there is in Stilly, I could still see this team eke out 4 wins. OSU lost on Saturday because it was basically-7 in the turnover department. I count SOD as turnovers. Now, will we beat Oregon or Tech, no way. We will not be -7 in TOs again this season. Itâs not what we want, but it may keep Mestemaker here another yearâŚ..
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I think we can do that. Weâll get things running at some point. Weâll figure out how to work around the crappy offensive line as best we can and get something going.
All I can say is that I am still in shock. Going between extreme high to low is not good for anyone. Itâs just a sportâŚright?
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In my book 4 wins is almost as bad as 1 or 0. In any case we canât afford to have more than 1 or possibly 2 of those types seasons going forward given where we are coming from the past two years without tempting fate in the next conference realignment or whatever changes come next in the crazy world of college football.
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I tend to agree. With the amount of money spent to dismiss a staff, bring in a new one and bring notable talent, anything less than 6-6 imo should be seen as a failure. The program has been the national laughing stock for 2 season and we just got THAT performance? Yikes.
Nothing about the offense was good IMO. The defense has glimpses of being marginal, but even that only went so far.
Matt Rhule went 1-11 in his first season at Baylor. He took Baker Mayfield and that 2017 OU team to the final whistle. By year 3, they lost to OU in OT in the Big 12 title game. You people are absolutely unbelievable. Making any excuse possible for the previous HC and wonât give the new guy even a few games before making a complete judgment call on him 
.
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I think what hurts the most is how abysmal this result was. Iâve tried hard to avoid the hype train and have consistently stated that 6 wins would be a good year, and those talking 8+ seemed overly optimistic. But I still expected us to beat Tulsa. With the NIL money, new coaching staff, etc, we shouldnât have needed a pristine gameplan to simply line up and beat Tulsa.
That leads to the more horrifying question: Who on our team scares their opponent? Noone on our defense is that way, which was actually a real question going in, so while disappointing, isnât really a surprise. But who on offense scares opponents? Drew completed 29 passes in that game. Can you name a completion where the receiver wowwed you? Where he made the first man miss or showed a burst that the Tulsa defender didnât have? You saw those kind of plays from Tulsa. That catch at the 1 for example, or their swing pass TD where he made the OSU corner take a bad angle, beat him, then turned on the jets for a 20 yard TD. Hawkins was the only player to show any kind of real burst in being able to run through some tackles. The rest of the offense looked like a bunch of average joes. Like playing Madden with a team full of OVR 70 players. Noone is individually bad, but noone stands out or gives us an advantage over their opponent. And our opponent was Tulsa.
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Agree with your thoughts, and while itâs possible that the offense could come alive at some point this season, Iâm not going off any âfeelingsâ or hype anymore, only real indications, none of which from game one showed anything promising. This includes in-game coaching. I like coach Morris, but he left me really scratching my head more times than I could count. Gundy would do the same to me at times, but in this one game the play calling was bizarre at times and vanilla potato otherwise, even more than Meacham last year.
I guess Iâll have to wait for game 3 to gain any more understanding of this team because game 2 could be a bloodbath of sufficient proportions as to render it meaningless.
Gundy wasnât mentioned until you brought him up. Iâm not in the camp of throwing out the baby with the bath water but we also need to recognize that CFB is a completely different world. It doesnât and shouldnât take 3 years to ârebuildâ. You can be good instantly. Seeing that most of use were sold a huge bill of goods between the hype of morris, Mestemaker and the others he brought it, think itâs fair to say anything under 6 wins is a failure. Gone are the days of building up a program⌠we are now in a buy-your-roster world and be successful now.
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Iâm in the middle of this. I donât think instantaneous goodness is possible unless you have a large bankroll (i.e. Indiana and Texas Tech). Schools with our means are going to at least take a couple years and need to blend good scouting and evaluation with smart money decisions in the portal.
HOWEVER, since youâre talking to the guy that compared us to Cignettiâs Indiana team countless timesâŚ
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Bill has to mention Gundy in every post. If he can see even the slightest glimpse of his presence then he will insert him into the conversation. He is haunted by him. When he is brushing his teeth in the morning he will see him in the mirror. When he drives down the street, he sees him driving other cars. His final nightmare is Gundy is rehired and guides OSU to 5-7 but still makes the Poulan Weedeater because other self respecting teams opt out.
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Things were rolling up until the left tackel snap his leg and the wheels fell off. Not saying that was the reason they loss but man did that team look like a completely different team. It took the air out of their sails
I get the injury issue. But noone was bemoaning that Tulsa was missing its top 2 CBs in that game. If we canât overcome a single Oline injury against Tulsa, how did we have expectations that this team was going to survive the rigors of a 12 game schedule and actually compete with our peers in conference?
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Coming away with no points on the next drive was a worse momentum killer. Kick the field goal. Itâs not sexy and settling for a field goal would probably give Tulsa a little confidence, but not as much confidence as keeping us scoreless in field goal range. Give our team the lead and the confidence of seeing that â0â on the scoreboard go away.
Iâm not disagreeing with you. I still voiced even during the summer time that my biggest concern was our OL. If we had Joe Wickline play on the OL we donât lose Saturday, and we more than likely win 6 games or more this season. I also didnât make any ridiculous predictions either. So Iâm not exactly sure why everyone keeps claiming I did.
Iâll even challenge Hey Champ (since he had the time) to go research every single post Iâve made since heâs done so before. Not once did I ever say we would be the next Indiana, and not once did I ever say we would be playing for a conference title this season.
I also find it funny people are saying âGundy is gone!!! Move on!!!â. Then, when I do so, those very same hypocrites come on here and say âGundy wouldnât have lost this gameâ. Even though heâs proven three times from 2016-2025 he can not only lose, but get blown out by a G6 team.
Letâs trust that Gundy would lead us to more winning after the USA loss in 2023. However, letâs demonize the new coach and give up on him already after one freaking game 
. Thatâs the part that doesnât make any sense 
.
Why was Wickline never able to find steady employment after he left here?
Of course not, because youâre a chickenshit. When I said predicting 8+ wins was a little ridiculous, you would say things like âIndiana did it!â So you were accepting it as a possibility even though you wanted your barometer to be 4 wins so you could come in here and claim some great success if we squeak out that awful record.
You havenât done it. In fact, in this quote right here, youâre bringing up Gundy again. Youâre literally contradicting yourself mid-comment. Itâs astounding. Youâre like an addict. No, people have been throwing Gundy in your face because youâve invoked his name probably LITERALLY 500 times this summer usually in conjunction with something like, âsee, this is what a real coach does, you wonât see him losing to Tulsa!â And here we are, so you deserve to have it shoved down your throat for not shutting up about it despite repeatedly being asked to.
Cannot help yourself.
Says the guy whoâs too chickeshit to make a prediction and goes after everyone else that does . Thatâs what a giant *ussy behind a keyboard does though.
You guys obviously want to bring him up and talk about him. SoâŚ.what do you want to talk about then? I meanâŚ.you guys set him as the standard to be met from the new coach coming in. So thatâs exactly what Iâm doing. You guys are going to bring Gundy up regardless of what happens. Weâve only had one coach for the last 20+ years. So you tell me who or what we should compare Morris to?
You guys were extremely quick about NOT wanting to talk about Gundy after being wrong about him for over a year. Now all of a sudden you guys get to bring him up again, while telling everyone else that had been right by about him to shut up? WTF is wrong with you? You think we live in a banana republic or something?
Just pointing out how ridiculous the outlook is. Itâs okay for the greatest coach in school history to lose to a G6 team three times in the past decade, but not for a dude in his very first game at OSU .