Oklahoma State’s National Buzz Keeps Growing Ahead of UCF Matchup

Oklahoma State is back to work ahead of Saturday's matchup with UCF, but the Cowboys are entering game week with considerably more national attention than they had before their week off.

From appearing in a projected College Football Playoff bracket to quarterback Drew Mestemaker receiving another massive piece of NFL Draft praise, OSU's rise under first-year coach Eric Morris is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

The Cowboys enter Saturday's matchup at Boone Pickens Stadium 3-1, ranked No. 18 in the AP Top 25 and riding a three-game winning streak.

Now they're appearing in the playoff conversation, too. Andy Staples' latest CFP Bracketology for On3 projects Oklahoma State as the No. 8 seed in the 12-team College Football Playoff.

The hypothetical first-round matchup would provide an intriguing rematch. Staples has No. 8 Oklahoma State facing No. 9 Oregon, which would bring the Ducks to Stillwater after OSU's 39-31 upset of then-No. 6 Oregon earlier this season.

It's only an October projection, and Oklahoma State still has the majority of its Big 12 schedule ahead. But simply seeing the Cowboys included in national playoff projections represents a dramatic change from where they stood following their season-opening 24-10 loss at Tulsa.

The growing attention isn't limited to the team. Mestemaker's rapid rise has become one of the biggest individual stories surrounding Oklahoma State.

Former ESPN college football analyst David Pollack recently teased a breakdown of Mestemaker with an eye-opening comparison.

“Josh Allen 2.0,” Pollack wrote, while describing the former zero-star recruit as a player who could become the No. 1 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft.

That's not the first significant NFL Draft projection Mestemaker has received. ESPN's Jordan Reid recently ranked Mestemaker as the No. 1 quarterback in his early look at the 2027 draft class and No. 11 overall, placing him ahead of several highly touted quarterbacks.

It's an extraordinary trajectory for a player who never started a varsity game at quarterback in high school and began his college career as a walk-on at North Texas.

Mestemaker followed Morris to Oklahoma State and has since become the centerpiece of one of the nation's most productive offenses. He's thrown for more than 300 yards in three consecutive games, including 389 yards and three touchdowns in OSU's 41-24 win at West Virginia.

That victory moved Oklahoma State to 1-0 in Big 12 play and ended the program's 18-game conference losing streak.

None of these projections guarantee anything. Oklahoma State still has eight regular-season games remaining, beginning Saturday against UCF, while the 2027 NFL Draft remains far in the distance. But the conversations themselves illustrate how quickly perceptions surrounding the program have changed.

A month ago, Oklahoma State was trying to recover from a season-opening loss at Tulsa. Now the Cowboys are No. 18 in the country, appearing in CFP brackets and watching their quarterback get compared to Josh Allen as a potential future No. 1 NFL Draft pick.

Saturday against UCF provides the Cowboys their next opportunity to show that the rapidly growing national attention is warranted.