What Will Muschamp said about Chad Morris departure from Arkansas, their relationship
South Carolina football coach Will Muschamp knows Chad Morris from way back.
Think before he was a head coach, before he came to Clemson as an offensive coordinator. And well before Muschamp took over a program.
“I know Chad well actually,” Muschamp said. “I was at the University of Texas when he was at Lake Travis High School there in Austin. He did a great job there and then obviously to Tulsa and then to Clemson from there, SMU and Arkansas.”
Morris went 32-0 in two seasons at Lake Travis, less than a 20-minute drive to UT. With future Texas QB Garrett Gilbert and future Texas Tech and Virignia Tech coach Michael Brewer, he put up big numbers before leaving the high school ranks to go to Tulsa for a year and then join Clemson’s staff.
Morris was fired Sunday after a disastrous run at Arkansas where he went 4-18. He’d turned SMU from a 2-10 team to a 7-5 squad in three years before getting that job.
Morris will almost assuredly land a top-flight offensive coordinator job after what he did at Clemson. South Carolina is mired in a bad offensive season and questions have been coming about potential changes to the offensive staff.
In many ways, Morris saved Dabo Swinney’s tenure at Clemson. The 2010 season saw the Tigers go 6-7, with the Tigers ranked worse than 85th in the country in yards per play in points per game. They jumped to 41st and 23rd in Morris’ first season, and then to sixth in scoring the season after.
Morris also helped secure Deshaun Watson as a recruit.
“I’m disappointed,” Muschamp said of Morris’ firing. “That’s kind of the business we’re in right now. You’ve got to win now. That’s part of it. Chad’s an outstanding football coach and he’s an outstanding person. He’ll land on his feet in a good spot.”
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 12:54 PM.
