Extreme Roster Turnover Not a Problem With Roster Cohesion for Oklahoma State
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FRISCO, TX – In my opinion, Big 12 Football Media Days is the official beginning of the football season. Sure, everyone goes home for a few weeks and there isn’t any football activities before fall came begins in August, but it gets everybody amped up and talking football and the season starts before you know it.
In a “normal” year, most coaches will have a fairly consistent roster from one year to the next. Sure, with the transfer portal you’re going to see upwards of 20 some odd new players from year-to-year, but you’re most likely going to see 75-80% same roster.
Not the case with Oklahoma State. Eric Morris and Co. have less than 30 players returning from last year’s roster and more than 60 newcomers out of the transfer portal.
With a good number of players from North Texas, who are also comfortable with most of the coaches who showed up from North Texas, how does Eric Morris get his team more comfortable with each other? Just like a work mixer, he makes them mingle with someone they don’t know.
“The way I like to build my teams is we intentionally spend time together. There's nothing flashy with it; it might be mandatory breakfast together, sitting at a different table with a different coach. It might be splitting up playing different activities, Wiffle ball, going bowling, you know, coming over to my house to swim. Just different activities where we spend intentional time together. I think that's one thing that's lost not only today in just athletics, but just in college students in general. With technology, so many people are addicted to their phones, to video games. And I think since COVID, people just don’t have the same college experience they used to have. I think what's really cool about Stillwater is it's such a small, tight-knit community that our kids actually go out and do a lot of activities together. You know, whether it's golfing, fishing, or out at the gun range shooting skeet, there are so many unique things to do together.
“For me, if you came in our locker room right now and you just paid attention to the way that guys interact with one another, you would think these guys have been around each other for years and years, and not just the North Texas guys, but everybody together, right? From our very first team meeting, all the North Texas guys were sitting in the front right, and the first thing I did when I addressed the team is I made everybody stand up, move, and go sit by somebody they didn't know so we could immediately start forming new relationships, because it’s not about us and them. This is all about Oklahoma State versus a really good conference in the Big 12.”
Hearing from the OSU player contingent who was at The Star on Tuesday, you get the same message we heard from Eric Morris. Most of these guys have been together since the middle of January and there’s a lot of cohesion. It will be fun to watch fall camp and see how the comradery is with the guys getting after it.
