It sounds to me like the UVA Football brain trust assumes that Chandler Morris will be back for the 2026 season.
But …
There’s always a but, when the NCAA is involved.
Football GM Tyler Jones and assistant GM Justin Speros met with the local media on Monday to talk about their work on the upcoming transfer portal season, with the portal open for a two-week period beginning Jan. 2, a week from Friday.
A lot of the back-and-forth was on recruiting philosophies, and trust me, having read the transcript, not much there.
My eyes and ears perked up at the brief mention of the Chandler Morris situation, though.
ICYMI
Word started trickling out a couple of weeks ago that Morris and UVA Athletics were working on petitioning the NCAA for what would be a seventh season for Morris, whose college career started way, way back in 2020, when he was a true freshman at Oklahoma.
That he was used in five games that fall would be coaching malpractice, except that the NCAA gave everybody who played in 2020 a redshirt year because of the circumstances surrounding the COVID pandemic.
As to the specifics of the case that UVA is making on behalf of Morris, Speros revealed – not much, actually – but he did reveal something, sorta, kinda.
It appears that the petition is focusing on Morris’ 2022 season at TCU.
The context there: Morris had gone into the 2022 season at TCU as the QB1, but was injured 35 snaps into the 38-13 season-opening win at Colorado.
Backup Max Duggan stepped in and put up Heisman finalist numbers – passing for 3,698 yards and 32 TDs, and adding 423 yards and nine TDs on the ground.
Morris went on to play in three more games that season – getting three snaps in the 34-24 win over Texas Tech on Nov. 5, 18 snaps at the end of the 62-14 TCU win at Iowa State on Nov. 26, and five snaps at the end of the 65-7 loss to Georgia in the CFP title game.
Those three usages are coaching malpractice; clearly, just situations where you have the third-string kid take the snaps to protect the redshirt of the guy that you have penciled in as your starter for the next season, as was the case with Morris at the time.
Which gets us back to Speros:
“I don’t know if we can go into specifics. Yeah, can’t touch on specifics, but it’s in regards to his participation in the 2022 season,” Speros said.
The case here is pretty solid, but nothing is a slam-dunk home run 99-yard touchdown with the NCAA.
We didn’t get a sense from either Jones or Speros when the program expects a call from the NCAA one way or the other, which, obviously, will be a cloud hanging over the upcoming transfer portal season, until we do get word.
“We’re hopeful, and going back to your question, you know, you got to plan for all different scenarios. Our desire and hope is that he returns and is able to play. But you got to map several different scenarios out,” Jones said, adding, when pressed on what the brain trust is doing to account for the QB depth chart next year, added:
“We haven’t really talked a ton about that right now, because we’re hopeful that he returns,” Jones said. “But you know, when the time is right, we’ll sit down with the staff and, you know, coach and the coordinators, and talk through that. But, you know, our hope and desire is that he’s back, and that we’re able to build around him for 2026.”
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Chris Graham
