‘The Calendar Doesn’t Make Sense’: Eric Morris Discusses Juggling Jobs, Rosters and Intro Pressers

A busy coaching carousel paired with a calendar that doesn’t make a lick of sense has made for an interesting past week or so.

Soon-to-be Oklahoma State coach Eric Morris will coach North Texas in the American title came on Friday against soon-to-be Florida coach Jon Sumrall and Tulane.

Sumrall has already had his introduction to Florida while Morris’ introduction will come almost two weeks after he was officially announced as OSU’s next coach.

Then other coaches, like Ole Miss-to-LSU coach Lane Kiffin, have already left their old spot for their new spot.

“Everybody is his own person, and there’s different dynamics, I think, at every job that you’re getting into, so we just thought it’d be best if we did (the introduction) next week,” Morris said this week. “We’ll go ahead and get that out of the way next week. It’s just one more thing to add to us getting into it. I’ve always been a guy that really believes in being honest and just having a lot of communication on the front end of things and getting on the same page with people that are making these decisions.

“I don’t think any of these decisions are wrong. I don’t judge anybody for doing what they’re doing right now. The way I’ve handled it is the best way I know how do to it and trying to, not protect everybody involved, but be conscientious of what’s going on right now in the North Texas program and still understanding at the end of the day that I’m gonna have a different responsibility here really soon.”

It’s a unique circumstance, for certain.

In the midst of preparing for a championship game. Morris had a Signing Day on Wednesday for another school. OSU signed 15 prospects as the early signing period opened, many of whom were previously committed to North Texas.

Despite the awkward scenario, Morris seems to be doing about as good a job as someone can while essentially being the head coach of two programs.

Kiffin’s position is different in that he’s going between SEC rivals, something that’s much more of a lateral move than making the jump up from the Group of Five to the Power Conference level, but it’s fair to say Kiffin’s Oxford exit was far from the cleanest.

When asked about trying to make his exit as clean as possible, Morris again went back to honesty and communication.

“I think the first thing that comes to my mind is I just respect my boss so much in (UNT AD) Jared Mosely, so I never wanted it to feel like I was doing something behind his back or things he didn’t know about,” Morris said. “And I didn’t know if that was the right thing to at the time. Some of these things are happening a lot faster, and it was a lot of first things for me, right? I remember calling my agent and being like, ‘Hey, I don’t know what to do, but I’m gonna tell Jared what’s going on. Is that what I’m supposed to do?’ And he was like, ‘Well, you can handle it how you want.’

“I just think when people take a chance on you and give you an opportunity, which Jared did that for me here. He’s been super loyal to me here and believing in kind of what we’re building here. So I think that was the most important thing to me is I did those things the right way and took the steps and the measures to overcommunicate, if you will would, kind of what was going on.”

No matter your views on who is handling the difficult situations correctly, it obvious something needs to be done about the NCAA’s football calendar.

There isn’t exactly a clear answer getting that calendar fixed, though. The football season spilling over from the fall semester into the spring semester makes matching school with football tricky.

The NCAA cut two portal windows down to one, which opens Jan. 2 and goes to Jan. 16. OSU starts the spring semester Jan. 12, with add/drop deadlines for classes coming Jan. 20 (full refund) and Jan. 23 (partial refund). That’s not a big window for guys to evaluate options and pick a new school before picking up and moving cross country to get to their next destination.

Then in preparation to get to the point where you’re adding players, you need to get a new coach in place before then (and also preferably before an early December high school signing day) so that coach can be best prepared to build the best roster possible.

It’s a mess.

“The timing of everything in college football, the calendar doesn’t make sense on a lot of different levels,” Morris said. “Something that I hope the NCAA works on to get fixed and allows this to kind of line up a little bit better with a championship series the way college football has done.

“I don’t think there’s a perfect answer to that. Either we’re gonna have to finish the season in December or we’re gonna go to an NFL model, and we’re gonna have to do the portal and then be OK if kids can’t get into school for a semester and they pause going to school for a semester just because it doesn’t all line up. Hopefully there will be some changes coming.”