Oklahoma State’s “experienced” 2026 roster comes with a startling caveat: most snaps are new

Oklahoma State’s rebuilding project for the 2026 season has an unusual profile. According to a TruMedia-based experience ranking published by CBS Sports on June 8, 2026, the Cowboys enter the year with the third-most total career FBS snaps in the country, even though they rank 134th for returning snaps after replacing the vast majority of their 2025 roster. That combination suggests a roster built for quick stabilization through the transfer portal and veteran additions, rather than gradual development from the prior season’s depth chart. In practice, it raises a central question for the Cowboys under first-year head coach Eric Morris: how quickly can accumulated experience translate into shared timing, communication, and execution on game day?

Morris, hired by Oklahoma State on November 25, 2025, took over a program coming off a rough 2025. OSU finished 1-11 overall and 0-9 in Big 12 play, according to the school’s official schedule/results pages. The same winless conference pattern showed up in 2024, when Oklahoma State went 3-9 overall and also finished 0-9 in league games. The conference drought became long enough that CBS framed Morris’s arrival as inheriting a team that had not won a conference game in more than two years.

The last time the Cowboys recorded a Big 12 win in this span came on November 25, 2023, when Oklahoma State beat BYU 40-34 in double overtime, per BYU Athletics’ game recap. From there, the narrative was continuity problems, including the difficulty of sustaining performance through personnel churn. That context matters because “experience” can mean different things: this ranking is not about how long a unit has been together. It measures cumulative production across players’ prior FBS careers, then overlays where that experience is concentrated by position.

In the CBS Sports ranking, Oklahoma State’s totals are striking for both sides of the ball. The Cowboys are listed with 34,621 total career FBS snaps (ranked third overall). Offensively, their offensive snaps total is ranked seventh, while their defensive snaps total is ranked third. CBS also notes that the experience dataset includes offensive and defensive snaps, games played, and starts earned throughout FBS careers, and that it does not count special teams contributors such as kickers, punters, and long snappers. In other words, the “experienced roster” label is real, but it is also limited to how players have accumulated work in FBS offensive and defensive roles.

The major caveat is returning volume. CBS reports that Oklahoma State ranks 134th nationally with just 10 percent of its snaps returning from the 2025 roster. That is a common side effect of roster resets, but it is especially relevant for first-year coaching staffs, because systems are learned by doing, not by résumé. Morris is coming from North Texas, and OSU’s own hiring release emphasized his background as an offensive mind and talent developer, but the 2026 transition still has to absorb nearly all of last season’s live snap counts.

What to watch next is whether OSU’s veteran accumulation shows up as repeatable fundamentals early in the 2026 season. The ranking implies the Cowboys should be able to draw on players who have already handled high-pressure snaps in the FBS, particularly on defense. The real test, however, is cohesion: whether the unit can turn career experience into shared reads, reliable assignments, and fewer breakdowns against the Big 12’s more structured game plans. If the Cowboys can bridge that gap quickly, their “new-mostly, experienced-now” roster may start paying off sooner than the 0-18 Big 12 run in 2024-25 would otherwise suggest.