Oklahoma State has chosen North Texas\u2019 Eric Morris as its new head football coach, the school announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Morris has been the head coach at North Texas since 2023. The program went 5-7 his first season, but now is contending for a conference championship and College Football Playoff berth. The Mean Green are No. 21 in the AP Top 25<\/a>.<\/p>\n Morris has a reputation for helping quarterbacks, having coached, developed or recruited Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield, John Mateer, Cam Ward, Chandler Morris and Drew Mestemaker.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many reasons, including the kind of person he is and the lasting relationships he builds with his players, Coach Morris is the perfect fit as the next leader of Cowboy Football,\u201d Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weiberg said. \u201cThe future is bright for OSU Football and I look forward to introducing him and his family to our team, our former players and all Cowboy fans.\u201d<\/p>\n The hire is pending board approval.<\/p>\n North Texas plays its regular-season finale at home Friday against Temple. With a win, the Mean Green (10-1, 6-1 American) get in the American Conference championship game and would potentially host it. They are still in play to be the Group of Five representative in the 12-team College Football Playoff<\/a>.<\/p>\n With former walk-on quarterback Mestemaker, a redshirt freshman who is the nation\u2019s leading passer with 3,469 yards, the Mean Green are the nation\u2019s top offense at 503 total yards and 46.3 points per game. They have six 50-point games. They have matched the most wins in school history and are ranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 1959.<\/p>\n Morris was a receiver at Texas Tech for the late Mike Leach, and in 2012 joined the coach\u2019s staff at Washington State. Morris returned to the Red Raiders the next year as offensive coordinator, a role he had when Mahomes was their quarterback for three seasons. He coached Ward, the top overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft<\/a>, at FCS Incarnate Word in his first head coaching job.<\/p>\n North Texas said in a news release that Morris will coach the Mean Green through this season. <\/p>\n \u201cOn behalf of the University of North Texas, I want to express our deep gratitude to Eric for everything he has done for Mean Green Football over the past three seasons,\u201d North Texas athletic director Jared Mosley said.<\/p>\n Morris will step in for Mike Gundy, who was fired in September<\/a> during his 21st season. Doug Meacham<\/a> is 0-8 as the interim coach. Oklahoma State is 1-10 heading into its season finale at home against Iowa State on Saturday.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oklahoma State has chosen North Texas\u2019 Eric Morris as its new head football coach, the school announced Tuesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13271,33979,33984,261,416,2355,9353,33980,33985,13416,28061,33981,14660,33983,10852,2926,9820,33982,8251,154,27,29,28,1760],"class_list":["post-65417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-baker-mayfield","tag-cam-ward","tag-chad-weiberg","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-doug-meacham","tag-drew-mestemaker","tag-eric-morris","tag-jared-mosley","tag-john-mateer","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-mike-gundy","tag-north-texas-mean-green","tag-north-texas-mean-green-football","tag-ok-state-wire","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-state-cowboys","tag-oklahoma-state-cowboys-football","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tx-state-wire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}