Chandler Morris is a full go for Saturday at NC State, and UVA Football coach Tony Elliott said Tuesday his expectation for his grad senior QB1 is that he will “play his tail off.”
“My expectation is that he has a great week of prep, and he’s ready to go and brings his best game,” said Elliott, whose biggest question over the weekend was the status of Morris, who was forced out of the 48-7 win over Coastal Carolina on Saturday after taking a helmet-to-helmet him on a 28-yard scramble in the third quarter.
ICYMI
- UVA Football Week 2 | Notes, press conference quotes, depth chart for NC State
- Greg’s Grades | UVA Football grade report for Week 1 win over Coastal Carolina
- Report Card | Grading out UVA Football in the 48-7 win over Coastal Carolina
Morris was initially said to be suffering from a sprained AC joint in his left (non-throwing) shoulder, and a program source told AFP after the game that Morris was in “moderate pain.”
Before the injury, Morris put up big numbers in two quarters plus one drive of action, completing 19 of his 27 pass attempts for 264 yards and two TDs, and adding a team-leading 50 yards on the ground, 41 of those yards coming on scrambles.
One of the five plays that went in the books as rushing attempts was a designed run, and that one went for nine yards.
I would imagine that you may see offensive coordinator Des Kitchings limit the number of designed runs for Morris at least this coming weekend, if not systematically going forward.
You can see the temptation to want to give Morris the chance to run the ball – he has decent wheels, as was evident on the scramble that ended with him on the turf with the bum shoulder.
“Love to see him go down feet first right there, but that’s what you love about him, is, he’s such a competitor,” Elliott told reporters at his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “He was that close to the goal line, and even down on the field when I got to him, he had a little bit of a sense of humor. He said that wasn’t very successful, but he’s like, Coach, I was so close, and all I saw was the goal line.”
Backup Daniel Kaelin, a redshirt freshman who transferred in from Nebraska in the offseason, got 22 snaps – his first at the collegiate level – in relief of Morris on Saturday, completing three of his nine pass attempts for 26 yards playing with the backups, and gaining two yards on a rushing attempt that was a designed run.
After Kaelin, there’s a dropoff – Boone Lourd, a three-star recruit in the Class of 2024, got three snaps, his first in college, on the final drive on Saturday, and after Lourd, it’s a pair of true freshmen, three-star recruits Cole Geer and Bjorn Jurgensen.
Senior Grady Brosterhous, used primarily in short-yardage and red-zone situations the past couple of years, is out with an undisclosed injury.
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Chris Graham
