Chandler Morris led TCU’s upset win over Baylor with a big performance. Coaches around the Big 12 reacted to the Oklahoma transfer’s debut.
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In his first collegiate start, TCU quarterback Chandler Morris provided a jumpstart to a program in need of some positive juice.
Morris led the way in the Horned Frogs’ 30-28 Saturday upset of Baylor. The Highland Park, Texas product completed 29-of-41 passes against the Bears and racked up 461 passing yards with a pair of touchdown passes.
As was the case at Oklahoma, Morris also demonstrated his dual-threat capabilities by rushing for 70 yards on 11 carries with a 12-yard scoring scamper sprinkled in.
Oklahoma head football coach Lincoln Riley said during the Big 12 teleconference call that he spoke with Morris and his family after the game to congratulate them. With the Sooners on a bye week, he caught part of the action himself as well.
“I did. I got to see some of it. Yeah, he played well. It was awesome to see him play so well. I know he’s been waiting on his opportunity and got an opportunity and obviously rose to the occasion. Moved around, made some big throws. It was good,” Riley said.
“It was just really cool to see him do well. We’ve got a number of guys that have ended up in other spots and we’ve got a number of guys that are doing very well at a lot of places with obviously Chandler, AK, Mordecai. Always root for those guys. Really happy to see Chandler in such a big game with all that’s going on there and playing a really good Baylor team, I was happy to see him play very well.”
TCU interim head coach Jerry Kill marveled at Morris’ debut.
“It was one of those things with Chandler where you don’t get a chance to see something like that very often in a young man’s first start the way he played. It probably goes back to being raised by his daddy and so forth, but he carried us in the game. There’s no doubt about it. We don’t win the game without what he does,” Kill said.
Kill said he and his staff knew Baylor would be difficult to run the football against and that Morris’ legs gave his offense a different dimension to game plan around.
“We knew we were going to have to do some things different. Similar to what we tried to do at Oklahoma and got beat. We tried to mix it up as much as possible, but with his speed he can move around, too, so he was an added run guy that we needed because we only had one running back,” Kill said.
Baylor head football coach Dave Aranda saw firsthand what makes Morris difficult to defend. Morris’ ability to negate a pass rush with his feet was on display and that’s been one of the issues that’s plagued the Bears.
“I think he had a really good game, you know, similar to some of the things that has been happening against us going back to Texas State really. I think you can go throughout kind of our season so far and pull examples. We talked about some of this after last week as well. These are things that while we have improved some, clearly not enough,” Aranda said.
Next up for Morris and TCU is a trip to Oklahoma State. While he hadn’t watched the tape yet as of Monday morning, Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy took notice of what Morris accomplished against Baylor.
“I’m still working on the other side of the ball. I normally don’t get to that until later in the afternoon on Monday. I saw his statistics where I think he threw for 470 and rushed for 70, so obviously they’ve found a quarterback they like that’s had a tremendous amount of success and must’ve played very, very well,” Gundy said.
Oklahoma and Riley’s impressive track record on quarterback evaluations appears like it’s continuing after Morris’ first starting performance is in the books.
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