A day after landing Nebraska freshman QB Danny Kaelin off the transfer portal, the UVA Football coaching staff went even bigger, with the commitment of Chandler Morris, who passed for 3,774 yards and 31 TDs at North Texas in 2024.
Is there any doubt that Virginia is a serious player in the NIL game now?
Word got back to us from a source Sunday night that Kaelin was a seven-figure NIL get, and that’s with him not having played a down of college football, though he was an Elite 11 finalist as a prep, and has four years of eligibility remaining, after redshirting this fall as a true freshman at Nebraska.
ICYMI
Morris, for his part in this, is a plug-and-play QB1, who has 21 career starts, at TCU and then at North Texas.
Morris will be a sixth-year senior in 2025.
There’s a family tie for Morris with UVA – Morris’s father, Chad, was the offensive coordinator at Clemson from 2011-2014, when Virginia head coach Tony Elliott was the running back on the offensive staff there.
Elliott ended up replacing Chad Morris as the offensive play-caller at Clemson when Morris left to take the head coach job at SMU, where he was 14-22 in three seasons before taking the job at Arkansas, which fired him after a 4-18 run in 2018 and 2019.
Chad Morris is now the wide receivers coach at Texas State, which was 7-5 in 2024 and will face North Texas in the First Responder Bowl on Jan. 3.
Seems like a lifetime ago when we were lamenting the decision of two-year starter Anthony Colandrea to hit the portal, doesn’t it?
ICYMI
- UVA Football: Transfer QB Anthony Colandrea set to visit Ole Miss
- UVA Football: Anthony Colandrea to the portal was a surprise to Tony Elliott
- UVA Football: Anthony Colandrea, no surprise, headed to the transfer portal
I’ll be honest here – I’m surprised, after the Danny Kaelin news from Sunday, that we have this Chandler Morris news here on Monday.
Kaelin, for all of his promise, is a developmental guy, but I was of the mindset that the NIL commitment to him was an indication that he was going to be the guy in 2025, with a chance to learn on the job.
Chandler Morris, let’s be clear on this, isn’t committing to Virginia to compete and hold a clipboard; he’s on his way to UVA to be the starter.
I assume that his presence in the QB room, alongside Kaelin, and two freshmen from the 2025 signing class, Cole Geer and Bjorn Jurgensen, makes 2024 transfer Gavin Frakes, who started five games at New Mexico State in 2022, expendable, and one from among Geer and Jurgensen will likely be headed out the door after the 2025 season, given the presence of Kaelin, and his status as the QB of the future.
With the QB room complete, the focus needs to turn to the offensive line.
The QBs need blockers.
Video: UVA Football playing big boy football
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Chris Graham
