2026 Oklahoma State Football Preview and Win Total Prediction
The Oklahoma State football program is known for its bright-orange flare, but the 2026 edition of the Cowboys will have plenty of (mean) green in the mix. New head coach Eric Morris arrives in Stillwater after a three-year run at North Texas, and he brought plenty of familiar faces with him.
2026 Oklahoma State Football Preview
Big XII Betting Odds
| Team | 2025 Record | 2026 Win Total | B12 Odds | Make CFP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 9-4 (6-3) | 7.5 (o +105 / u -125) | +1900 | +1000 |
| Arizona State | 8-5 (6-3) | 6.5 (o -115 / u -105) | +2500 | +1200 |
| Baylor | 5-7 (3-6) | 5.5 (o -165 / u +135) | +4500 | +2500 |
| BYU | 12-2 (8-2) | 8.5 (o -150 / u +125) | +550 | +330 |
| Cincinnati | 7-6 (5-4) | 5.5 (o +125 / u -150) | +10000 | +5000 |
| Colorado | 3-9 (1-8) | 4.5 (o +135 / u -160) | +9000 | +9000 |
| Houston | 10-3 (6-3) | 8.5 (o +130 / u -155) | +1600 | +850 |
| Iowa State | 8-4 (5-4) | 4.5 (o -170 / u +135) | +11000 | +7000 |
| Kansas | 5-7 (3-6) | 5.5 (o -155 / u +130) | +4500 | +3000 |
| Kansas State | 6-6 (5-4) | 8.5 (o +115 / u -135) | +1500 | +750 |
| Oklahoma State | 1-11 (0-9) | 6.5 (o +120 / u -140) | +3000 | +2000 |
| TCU | 9-4 (5-4) | 7.5 (o +125 / u -150) | +3000 | +1200 |
| Texas Tech | 12-2 (9-1) | 10.5 (o -200 / u +160) | -105 | -200 |
| Central Florida | 5-7 (2-7) | 5.5 (o -140 / u +120) | +6200 | +3000 |
| Utah | 11-2 (7-2) | 8.5 (o -150 / u +125) | +650 | +350 |
| West Virginia | 4-8 (2-7) | 5.5 (o -160 / u +135) | +5000 | +4000 |
Odds above courtesy of DraftKings as of August 3. The Cowboys went 1-11 straight-up, 5-7 against the spread last season. Oklahoma State opened the year with a 20-point home win over FCS-level Tennessee-Martin, which turned out to be the only win of the season. The ‘Pokes did show some fight late in the year, covering the spread in each of the last four games as a double-digit underdog.
2026 Oklahoma State Football Roster
Projected Returning Starters: 3 (One on offense and two on defense)
Projected Starting QB: Drew Mestemaker (Transfer from North Texas)
Returning Production: 58-percent (62-percent on offense and 53-percent on defense)
Incoming Talent Class: No. 46 Nationally / No. 9 in Big XII
Coaching Changes: New head coach Eric Morris arrives in Stillwater after a three-year run at North Texas. Morris has plenty of ties to the region after previously playing and coaching at Texas Tech, and his first coaching gig after college was at the University of Houston. Both of his top assistants – Offensive coordinator Sean Brophy and defensive coordinator Skyler Cassity – traveled with Morris from North Texas to Oklahoma State.
Returning starters are courtesy of CBS Sports. Returning production is courtesy of Bill Connelly’s conference preview series at ESPN. Incoming talent rankings are courtesy of 247 Sports’ Composite Ratings, which capture the talent rankings of both incoming freshman and incoming transfers.
2026 Oklahoma State Football Outlook
In the days before transferring schools in college football was as easy as ordering a hamburger at McDonald’s, it wasn’t so convenient to rebuild a roster on the fly. Indeed, most schools limited themselves to 25 or so new recruits on scholarship, many of those being freshmen who were unlikely to make immediate contributions.
Some schools opted for the junior college market when looking for a quick fix, with players often more pre-cooked to contribute immediately, but the juco route was rarely utilized for immediate, mass overhauls. Usually, when a coach was hired to resurrect a program, he had to do as best he could with inherited talent and hope the recruiting pipeline would provide upgrades in subsequent seasons.
The modern transfer portal, however, has changed all of that, as comprehensive overhauls can now be accomplished in one offseason. One of the first examples using this “en masse” template from the portal was Deion Sanders at Colorado upon his arrival in Boulder for 2023; only ten Buffaloes remained on the roster from the previous one-win campaign.
Whatever the thoughts on Sanders, he was a trailblazer in this regard, forging an immediate improvement at Colorado, and a legit breakthrough for his second season. Though, as a cautionary tale, mass portal reloads usually only provide a temporary fix, as Deion discovered last autumn.
This fall, however, no program looks to have embraced the Deion method more than Oklahoma State, where Eric Morris (after being courted by Arkansas, UCLA, and Auburn) landed after reviving the North Texas program with a shoot-‘em-up offense…more on that pass-happy scheme in a moment.
If ever a program needed a quick fix and re-set, and a roster clear-out, it was in Stillwater, where the operation collapsed in dramatic fashion the past two seasons after, hard as it is to believe, the Cowboys were in the Big XII title game vs. Texas, and beat Texas A&M in the Texas Bowl, as recently as 2023.
It all unraveled shortly thereafter, however, as head coach Mike Gundy either a) lost interest or b) didn’t adjust to the new marketplace and vibrant portal as quickly as he should. Possibly a combination of both. Whatever, after falling apart in 2024 when losing nine-straight to close the campaign, the storm signals were hard to ignore at this time last summer, and a miserable break from the gate that included a 69-3 humiliation at Oregon and then a home loss to Tulsa forced Oklahoma State to hit the eject button on Gundy before things got any worse.
The Cowboys resigned themselves to losing the rest of their games en route to a 1-11 debacle as they spent the majority of the fall evaluating potential new leaders for the program. That Morris was the eventual answer is being regarded in the region as a major coup.
There are 85 new Cowboys on the roster in 2026, no fewer than 60 from the portal, in what amounts to a college football expansion team. Except this expansion team looks more like the Vegas Golden Knights from 2017-18, ready to compete from the outset, than previous pro sports expansionites like John McKay’s winless, 0-14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1976.
After propping up the Mean Green the past three seasons, Morris convinced most of his staff and 20 key players to move with him from Denton. None were more decorated, or more in-demand within the portal, than QB Drew Mestemaker, he of 4,379 pass yards and 34 TD passes last season.
Mestemaker is merely the latest in a series of QB successes for Morris, whose past pupils include Patrick Mahomes, Cam Ward and John Mateer, with the extra twist that Mestemaker didn’t even start for his high school team. A supreme gunslinger to run the high-powered, high-tech Morris offense, he’s been joined by several Mean Green teammates, including downhill RB Caleb Hawkins, who blasted for 1,434 rushing yards and 24 TDs as a freshman last season. Wideouts Wyatt Young and Miles Coleman both moved from UNT, too, while fellow WR Chris Barnes arrived from Wake Forest after providing the highlight of the spring game when hauling in a 98-yard TD pass.
Meanwhile, five high-profile portal adds will man the offensive line. After ranking as one of the nation’s worst offenses last season while scoring only 14.2 points per game, expect this year’s attack to more resemble the 2025 Mean Green, who scored a dizzying 45.1 points per game last fall to lead the nation.
Of course, you’ve got to play defense in a Power 4 conference, too, and Morris authorized a complete overhaul of the stop unit as well after it allowed a whopping 33.3 points per game last fall. The only returning starter in Stillwater, cornerback LaDainian Fields, is actually showing up on NFL draft boards, and everyone else is new, including coordinator Skyler Cassity, one of several assistants who moved with Morris from Denton.
Ten new linemen represent another unknown entering the fall, but DE James Williams (ex-Florida State) and DT Jerry Lawson (ex-Louisville) had many suitors in the portal. Among the top stop-end transfers from North Texas are DT Saadiq Clements and OLB Ethan Wesloski, the Mean Green’s leading tackler a year ago. How quickly this platoon coagulates will likely determine how much of a factor Oklahoma State might be in the Big XII this fall.
Oklahoma State Win Total Prediction
With the infectious Morris telling everyone who will listen that if Indiana could do it, so can Oklahoma State, there is at least an air of excitement in Stillwater that was sorely absent at the end of the Gundy regime. As always, there are questions about such a mass overhaul, but given that much of UNT’s 12-2 team from 2025 team has moved with Morris, optimism abounds.
We’ll find out in a hurry how much Oklahoma State might have improved; Oregon, after scoring 69 on the Cowboys in Eugene last year, visits Stillwater on September 12, though a revenge match at Tulsa in the opener should provide an earlier barometer. The Big XII slate also appears manageable, missing BYU, Utah, and Arizona, while Texas Tech must trek to Stillwater on November 14.
Hoosiers-like for Oklahoma State? Maybe not, though the Cowboys don’t have to be to clear this modest 6.5 win total. OVER 6.5 Wins
2026 Oklahoma State Football Schedule
| Date | Day | Home/Away | Opponent |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 5 | Sat | Road | Tulsa |
| September 12 | Sat | Home | Oregon |
| September 19 | Sat | Home | Murray State |
| September 26 | Sat | Road | West Virginia |
| Bye | |||
| October 10 | Sat | Home | UCF |
| October 17 | Sat | Road | Houston |
| October 24 | Sat | Home | Colorado |
| October 31 | Sat | Road | Iowa State |
| November 7 | Sat | Road | Kansas State |
| November 14 | Sat | Home | Texas Tech |
| November 21 | Sat | Road | Arizona State |
| November 28 | Sat | Home | Kansas |
WagerTalk Live Odds Screen
WagerTalk’s live odds screen features up-to-the-minute lines from a variety of offshore and domestic sports books. Track the moneylines, point spreads, totals and betting percentages for all of the Oklahoma State football games from their release in May all the way through Week 1 in September. Find free college football picks from season win total bets through National Championship futures on our free picks pages.
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