The new QB1 for the UVA Football program, Chandler Morris, is on his fourth school in six years.
He’ll turn 25 during the 2025 bowl season.
He’s eight days younger than the second-year starting QB with the Washington Commanders, Jayden Daniels, the 2024 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
ICYMI
- UVA Football: North Texas QB Chandler Morris commits to Virginia
- UVA Football: Elliott able to upgrade QB room with Morris, Kaelin
I’m like a lot of you who write to me, daily, to tell me, I don’t like this, kids changing schools more than some people change the sheets on their bed, guys playing college football into their mid-20s, not to mention, college kids getting seven figures to play college football.
But then, I’m also like a lot of you who write, daily, to say, this is the way the business works now, and at least we got ourselves a good quarterback.
Nobody, incidentally, writes to me to say, I love this new system, where we don’t know the kids’ names, we have to pay through the nose for tickets, and it’s still the case that only, like, two or three schools have a legitimate chance to win the national title.
Sorry for the rant; just felt the need to acknowledge.
This is supposed to be a warm and fuzzy feature story on our new QB1, Chandler Morris.
So, let’s learn some things about our new QB.
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in the state of Virginia before I’d gotten on a visit at UVA,” Morris told reporters at the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte earlier this week.
Seriously?
Well, that’s not a good start, in terms of making this a story busting the myth that our new QB1 is a mercenary, just here because the UVA moneybag was bigger than everybody else’s.
Morris, an Oklahoma recruit, left after one season in Norman, and was the QB1 at TCU coming out of camp in 2022 before going down with a sprained MCL in the season opener.
His backup, Max Duggan, stepped in, and led TCU to the College Football Playoff, and an upset win in the semifinals over Michigan, before the 65-7 loss to Georgia in the national championship game.
Morris was then named the starter in 2023, and started the first six games, throwing for 1,532 yards and 12 TDs, before reinjuring the MCL in a loss to Iowa State.
In the 2023 offseason, Morris hit the transfer portal again, landing at North Texas, where he was able to stay healthy through the 2024 season, making 12 starts, passing for 3,774 yards and 31 TDs.
With one year of eligibility left, Morris was a hot commodity on the transfer portal in the 2024 offseason – visiting Oklahoma State, and including Ole Miss in his list of targets, before landing at Virginia, where the official story is, Morris has known Tony Elliott since elementary school, because his father, Chad Morris, was originally Elliott’s boss at Clemson, as the offensive coordinator, before Chad left to take the head coaching job at SMU.
“I’ve known him since I was about 11, 12 years old through my dad,” Chandler Morris said. “I remember being out there at practices with my dad, and just enjoying being around Coach Elliott, and just the respect my family has for him and me, as well, for him, that was a big factor into it.”
The reported seven-figure NIL commitment also had to play a role, but I’d imagine that Oklahoma State, which ended up with two QBs with no college game snaps, probably offered Morris a nice bag.
“I’ve been through a roller coaster of a career. My main thing, I wrote down pros and cons, and what do I truly want? At the end of the day, what does Chandler Morris want? And it was to be around good people. That was something very important to me,” Morris said.
“I know Coach Elliott is a great person. I knew he was going to have great people on his staff. I wasn’t too familiar with many people on his staff. I got to come up on a visit, and it was phenomenal,” Morris said. “Then also, too, the community and kind of the fan base. The fan base of Virginia, they’re hungry. I knew that the whole program has poured into this program and want to get it right, and the coaches have done a great job going out and getting the pieces that we need, and at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to us, and go out and execute.”
Looking past all the negative stuff – that college football isn’t even semi-pro football, not with the money that the kids are making, and that you have to wonder if the kids have to remind themselves what team they’re playing for this year, with how much they move around – Chandler Morris is a good get.
I mean, it’s something that UVA was able to get a guy with Morris’s experience and productivity over the likes of Oklahoma State and Ole Miss, which ended up with an in-house guy with 32 career pass attempts in college as its QB1.
My hope for his impact on UVA Football is two-fold – that he puts up good numbers and wins some games for us in 2025, and then, he also serves as a mentor to his redshirt freshman backup, former four-star prep recruit Danny Kaelin.
“I think being at different stops and being around many different teammates has really helped me,” Morris said. “And I think my experience, not just the success, but also the adversity that I’ve faced, I’ve been able to really connect more with my teammates. Football, it can be ugly at times. The game won’t love you back at times. I’ve learned that the hard way.”
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Chris Graham
