It was technically halftime, but it was over.
Not just the TCU football game, but Chandler Morris’ TCU football career.
TCU trailed No. 7 Texas by 20 points at the half on Nov. 11, 2023, and Morris was healthy. The TCU coaches discussed putting him in, ahead of starter Josh Hoover, but opted to keep Morris on the bench.
“I wanted to stay at TCU. I loved it there,” Morris said in a recent phone interview. “That Texas game opened my eyes. I saw the writing on the wall. They weren’t going to put me in. They had moved on. I understood it from there. I knew I had to leave.”
Both sides have a different interpretation of some of the specifics, but the relationship was over and he knew it. If Morris wanted the opportunity to really play college football again, his best chance was elsewhere.
He was living the other side of the transfer portal, which allows both teams and players to “move on” with little hesitation.
After earning his degree in communications from TCU in the spring, Morris transferred to North Texas where he hopes and plans to change the narrative that he is an injury-prone part to a trivia question.
There is a good quarterback in there; he just has to stay healthy long enough to prove it. He has sustained significant injuries in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Highland Park native who came to TCU by way of the University of Oklahoma in 2021 left Fort Worth stuffed with the oddest of football resumes.
The week after TCU head coach Gary Patterson “resigned” in 2021, Morris made his first career start and threw for 461 yards in an upset win over No 12. Baylor . TCU thought it had a solution at quarterback. The next week, he suffered a season-ending injury.
In coach Sonny Dykes’ first season at TCU, in 2022, he named Morris the starting quarterback. He suffered a knee injury in the first game, which made The Max Duggan Story possible. Morris watched Duggan lead TCU to the national title game .
Coming out of fall camp in 2023, Morris was again named the starting quarterback. He suffered a knee injury in a loss at Iowa State in the sixth game of the season. That injury opened the door for Hoover.
Unlike in 2022, when Duggan became a Heisman Trophy finalist, Hoover was good but erratic; the team’s performance was ish. Dykes could have easily justified going back to Morris.
Dykes stuck with Hoover, and Morris considered retiring. He didn’t quit because he didn’t want a lifetime of regret.
“I am a strong believer in everything happens for a reason. This was God’s plan,” Morris said. “I had a different path in mind. I know his plan is the correct one. I have come to peace with that. It didn’t happen over night; there were some long nights and tears with it.”
When Morris was healthy and playing in 2023, he admitted he was guilty of trying to maintain TCU at its 2022 levels by himself. His body language screamed that he was feeling all of the pressure and expectations created by the team that beat Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl.
Morris and the offense weren’t playing well enough to compensate for a terrible defense. He wasn’t having much fun, but neither was anyone else on a team that would finish 5-7.
“I took it personally. I am very hard on myself. There is a lot of stuff out of my control. I beat myself over it a little too much. That’s who I am,” he said. “I’ve realized that and I need to work on it.
“I’ve had a lot of highs and lows in my career and battled a lot of storms. I’ve had a lot of fun, and I have been around a lot of great teammates and created a lot of relationships.”
Morris is 23 years old with two years of college eligibility remaining. He is actually a little older than Duggan, who is in his second year in the NFL.
Morris played at Oklahoma and at TCU for a reason. He won the starting job, twice, at TCU for a reason. He has practiced well, and, at times, played well in games. There is a good quarterback in there.
Now he has to stay on the field long enough to prove he is more than an answer to obscure trivia question.
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