Tech ex Morris joins Cougars’ coaching staff
Eric Morris always envisioned becoming a coach.
The former Texas Tech receiver now has that opportunity.
Morris, who finished his Red Raider career in 2008, said Thursday he’s been hired as an offensive quality control coach at the University of Houston. He’ll focus on working with the Cougars’ inside receivers and will be coaching in an offense similar to the one in which he played.
Morris
“I’m definitely excited about it,” said Morris, whose father, Ray, is the longtime boys basketball coach at Shallowater. “With my dad being a coach, it’s something I’ve always enjoyed and something I wanted to get into. I love the game and love being around it, and love being competitive, and that’s something I think will carry over to the coaching profession.”
Morris, who has been in Houston studying film and familiarizing himself with the Cougars, takes the position previously held by former Tech quarterback Kliff Kingsbury. Morris said Kingsbury has been promoted to quarterbacks coach.
Morris said he’s looking forward to working with UH head coach Kevin Sumlin and new co-offensive coordinator Jason Phillips. Phillips replaced former Tech assistant coach Dana Holgorsen, who is the new offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State.
Morris said his playing experience under Mike Leach at Tech will help in his role on the Cougars’ staff.
“It’s based on the Texas Tech offense, but there’s quite a few wrinkles in it,” Morris said. “Coach Holgorsen and Kliff did a great job of coming in and teaching these guys and getting them playing at a high level, and it’s something I can pick up pretty quick and add to because I’ve been in it so long. I can kind of give them insight as to what works and what doesn’t work.”
Morris, who was a rookie last season for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League, hasn’t ruled out continuing his own playing career. He’s under contract for next season, but he said he hasn’t yet recovered from knee surgery in September.
“We’ll see what happens when it comes to that point in time to make a decision,” said Morris, who has had daily workouts with Kingsbury. “It’s a matter of how my body feels. If I feel good and feel like I can still contribute, obviously I still want to play.”
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Good luck, Eric Morris..
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Great news for the elf.
Can I be your agent?
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Good luck, ERIC!!
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Sweet! Harrell at OSU, Kingsbury and Morris at UH. Tech is pumping out great players and coaches. Glad to hear of another succes story for Tech. Morris even mentioned Leach because Leach done a great job. With Kliff now the QB coach, Morris having his hand in it, Sumlin running a Tech style offense….UH will be a great team next season. Hopefully by the time we meet in November Tech has their game together. Will make for another awesome game.
Either way, congrats to Kliff and Morris on their new found success.
Go Tech
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Way to go “Shallowater”.
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Congrats Eric!
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Sure seems like there’s alot of demand for our old “system players”. In a few years, the NFL will be full of spread trained players.
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Texas Tech used to be the world leader in the spread offense. Now, former players will show Tech how it’s done. Leach was the master and now his former pupils will wreck Tech. What a sight it will be to behold.
Houston, Oklahoma State and East Carolina have ex-Tech/Leach coaches/players who KNOW how to run the offense. All 3 of them could beat Tech now.
Texas Tech has a pretender running the offense who runs the ball nearly as much as he throws it, and they have a head coach who understands none of it. What a joke Tech will become now. Leach put Tech on the map. The Tuber man will erase them from it and it won’t take that long.
After he wrecks Tech, he’ll run away, just like he did at Auburn. Tuba man is a mediocre coach at best. If he was a winner, he never would have coached at A & M. Leach mopped the floor with him when they faced each other.
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Too bad that Tuberville was at A&M in 1994, six years before the pie rat came to tceh! Never let facts get in your way of writing stupid things though, miyagi! The truth is tceh never faced Tuberville while leech was there! By the way , mopping floors can be leech’s new job, I hear the Wal_Mart at Key West is hiring pie rat janitors! That will give you and leech something in common if they are hard up enough to hire him.
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This story was about Eric Morris and his good fortune.
Yet, real Tech fans have to be embarrassed by the idiots who spew garbage on this site about stuff they know nothing about.
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Thats right, this story is about Eric Morris and somebody is still throwing other crap in it. Eric reminds me of someone who lives larger that their size. Totally oblivious to people telling him that its not possible. In football standards, he is considerably small, yet his heart and determination make him a giant. This young man will do great things if he continues in the path he has chosen. Good Luck Coach Morris.
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Mr. Miyagi is a very very wise man
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Very sad to see Tech’s system going everywhere but Tech.
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Eric – Coach Morris (has a nice ring) best of luck at Houston. Will be looking forward to playing you all on Nov. 27th.
Congrats. and good luck.
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My Miyagi says, “Houston, Oklahoma State and East Carolina have ex-Tech/Leach coaches/players who KNOW how to run the offense. All 3 of them could beat Tech now.”
Neal Brown is an ex-leach player idiot! and he’s a proven offensive coordinator who ranked the 3rd best offense last year. Better than us. You know why? Because Leach was so inconsistent. Neal Brown is a proven coach with success. Harrell, Morris, Kliff, etc were great at Tech. How do we know they’re going to be great coachs? Neal Brown, who yes played for Mike Leach, is proven and will give us a more balanced consistent offense that will put up better numbers than we had under leach.
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Best to you, Coach Morris!
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WHY Do people see it as a negative that Coaches and players that coached and played at TTU are showing up at other schools. I think it speaks volumes of Leach and TTU. All great Coaches create success around him. Look at the Coaches and Players that came out of FSU/Bowden, MSU/Saban, OU/Stoops, UT/Brown that have gone on to be successful in their own right. I think you will start seeing great success from Baylor/Birles, ECU, Houston, Memphis OSU the list goes on. Mayor Applewhite Coached at Syracuse, then Rice and is now back at UT. I think it is a great compliment to TECH and Leach to see our guys out there. People want them.
Coach Morris congrats and best of luck see you on Nov. 27th.
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DCTechsan:
“Neal Brown is an ex-leach player idiot! and he’s a proven offensive coordinator who ranked the 3rd best offense last year. Better than us. You know why? Because Leach was so inconsistent. Neal Brown is a proven coach with success. Harrell, Morris, Kliff, etc were great at Tech. How do we know they’re going to be great coachs? Neal Brown, who yes played for Mike Leach, is proven and will give us a more balanced consistent offense that will put up better numbers than we had under leach. ”
The fact that is missed here is that both Kingsbury and Morris have a Texas coaching heritage and that none of the new coaches have that. It will give those schools an advantage when recruiting time comes and our new assistants are looking for their GPSs to just figure out where most of the towns and schools are.
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Congrats Eric! From one former Mustang to another. Best of luck!!
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Ride Raider Ride said: “WHY Do people see it as a negative that Coaches and players that coached and played at TTU are showing up at other schools.”
Well said. I think people are just frustrated that Tech didn’t hire these guys that are going elsewhere. Folks need to understand any former player or coach that expressed public support (or private for that matter) for Coach Leach during this debacle had no chance of being hired by Tech at this time. That’s just the way it is. Tuberville is known for reaching out to former players so look for him to continue that once the dust settles.
Congrats to Emo.
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Get rid of HANCE and Myers so the “salesman” can hire back our great players who can continue to run our offense AND teach Tuberville. It’s absolutely correct that these great players had no chance of being hired if they supported Leach. Are you kidding me? Hance and Myers have already shown how vindictive they can be so principled me like Morris and Harrell who supported Leach will never be a part of Tech coaching as long as they are around. I hope that Tubbs does reach out after His Royal Hance “ness” and Gerald Myers have been fired!!!
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“Why do people see it as a negative that Coaches and players that coached and played at TTU are showing up at other schools.”
It wouldn’t be a negative if the university that was responsible for teaching the young coaches the system was still running the system, too. But we are not. We had the master and fired him. We also fired anyone who knew how to teach it. Those who know it best served directly under Leach, but what did we do with all those people? We fired them, and even our older players who know the system are going to other schools. Talk about ironic. We have no one that truly knows Leach’s system, except the players. And they will have no say so in what the offense does.
Whoever brought up that the offensive coordinator at Troy had better stats than Leach……you are comparing apples to oranges. Do you have any idea who Troy plays, as opposed to the quality of the opponents that Tech faces in the Big 12? Neal Brown couldn’t even beat Central Michigan in the GMAC bowl with his offense. Neal Brown’s understanding of the offense can’t hold a candle to Leach.
Yes, Brown spent one year as a freshman under Leach 12 years ago. Big whoop. That means nothing. If you want to compare who has the most knowledge of Leach’s system, the best candidate would be someone that worked with Leach recently (i.e., Lincoln Riley), not someone who met Leach 12 years ago as a boy just out of high school. But, as expected, Tech got rid of Riley, too. Why? Because he was a supporter of Leach, publicly. This showed even more that those who are in the powerful positions at Tech are putting their own hides over what’s ultimately best for the Texas Tech football program.
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wow, mr. miyagi has some great insight as to the how and whys of texas tech football coaching hires. Too bad he isnt so good at history. Leach never played against Tuberville, idiot.
I bet all these Team Leach roaches will come scurrying back to our bandwagon next year when we are winning again.
such a waste of energy….
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TRO, a.k.a. Craig James. TRO, there will be no scurrying back next year. Just watch. You and Craig should be happy, or are you another iteration of Craig himself?
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With Coach Tubby building the offense around Adam James in both the H-Back and Tight-End roles, the offense will be fine, actually more than fine being lead by one of the premiere receivers in college today. Today Coach Tubby picked up a slew of defensive juggernauts which will be the rock behind James in Tech’s road to a National Championship.
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I watched last year’s TTU vs Nebraska game last night via my DVR minus the commercials and sped up. Craig James was the commentator. There were several comments made about his contact w/ Hance and the higher ups at Tech since he had alot of inside information to share w/ his co-commentator and the audience. He joked about it and said, “why not, always go to the top”. Craig made many negative comments about Leach and many of his decisions throughout the game all of which worked to get either the 1st down or a score. The interesting thing here is that looking back it was very obvious that the friction was on-going at the time. We all just missed it. If you have some of the games that Craig called, it might be interesting to pick up some of the negativity by going back & viewing them again.
When I wear my clothes w/ Tech logos, the first thing people ask about is what I think about Leach the whole mess. Unfortunately, this is what people outside of LBB & Texas think about–like it or not. Many here are reminded of the song about Buddy Holly- American Pie w/ the lyric “The Day the Music Died”. I hope that they will not use the song to refer to TTU football. The TTU Administration’s replacement hires in all sports so far have been abysmal at best. My advice for now is… don’t erase any Leach coached games on your DVR because those may be the best games you’ll see for along time to come. It should be a concern to all that no previous TTU players have wanted to return in any manner to help the Tech program and that it was so easy for them to go to their other opponents both in the Big 12 and Texas.
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I forgot to add, that I live in Virginia if you had not guessed that from my title.
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