Eric Morris handled the football 101 times in Texas Tech games last season, most often by catching a pass or returning a punt. Tech coach Mike Leach has come up with a new way to involve him this season.

Whether Leach’s latest dabbling stays in the playbook remains to be seen, but Morris has spent part of his training-camp workday this August lining up in the backfield, taking a direct snap from center and deciding whether to keep, hand off or even throw a pass.

“It’s something different that defenses have to respect when I’m back there,” said Morris, the Red Raiders’ starting inside receiver. “We did kind of a similar read play when I was in high school, so I’m kind of familiar with it, and coach Leach knew that when he called me this summer and kind of wanted to start running it.”

Tech coaches and teammates call the 5-foot-8, 169-pound Morris “Elf”, so when he lines up in the backfield the Raiders call it the Elf package.

Tech quarterback Graham Harrell is flanked on one side by a running back and on the other, a step or two closer to the line, by Morris. Morris can give to, say, Shannon Woods or Aaron Crawford crossing in front of him or, if he sees a lane for himself, keep it and go in the other direction.

It looks like the popular zone-read keeper that many teams run with their quarterback. Instead of reading a specific defensive player, however, Morris said his read is simply to look for open grass to run to.

“We worked on it this summer, kind of getting my eyes back to reading the defense and stuff like that,” Morris said. “I think we’ll be successful at it if we continue to execute and not mess up the snap.”

In addition to being able to hand off or keep, Morris has the option to dump a pass over the middle if the linebackers are coming up too close.

“We have three or four plays off of it,” he said.

Morris played quarterback his senior year at Shallowater High School, throwing for 22 touchdowns and running for 24 as he led the Mustangs to a 12-2 season and a state-semifinal berth.

Morris said plenty of those rushing touchdowns came on calls similar to what Tech is trying.

“We killed people with it (at Shallowater),” he said. “We ran that 15 times a game. It was a good play for us.”

In their training-camp experimentation, the Raiders also have tried another high school quarterback, Mike Crabtree, taking the direct snaps in the Elf formation. Morris has been the guy the majority of the time, however.

But who knows to what extent the Raiders will use it. The Raiders have worked on other unconventional formations and plays before that generated a buzz, but Leach never really embraced. Remember the Ninja formation?

Some Tech followers have a fondness for the lateral-to-a-receiver, receiver-throws-downfield call – especially since it paid off big in an upset of Texas in 2002. But the Raiders have rarely used that play since Mickey Peters completed his eligibility in 2003.

Leach mentioned the running that TCU’s quarterbacks do as a reason for the experiment. (Horned Frogs quarterback Jeff Ballard had nine carries for 66 yards in a 2006 game against Tech.)

By working on the Elf package for two weeks in open workouts, Leach has ensured only that opposing defensive coordinators now have something else for which to prepare.

“We’re just messing around with it,” Leach said. “I don’t know what we’ll do with it. We thought it was worth looking at. Don’t know if it’s worth keeping.”