How Eric Morris, a Former Receiver, Became Pro-Run Game

STILLWATER — Eric Morris said Mike Leach might have some choice words if he saw Morris’ Saturday practice script.

Morris is undoubtedly a Leach disciple, having played and coached under the Pirate, but one thing that differentiates Morris’ Air Raid scheme from Leach’s is an emphasis on running the football.

“If he looked at my script today and saw how many plays I’ve threw on the inside, he probably wouldn’t agree with it much,” Morris said with a chuckle. “He’d spend that time playing a little bit more 7-on-7. I just think any time you can force your will on an opponent and run the ball to finish out football games, and on the other side, when you can stop the run. I’ve been a part of teams where we’ve been really good on offense, can’t stop the run. Turns into long seasons for you. It’ll be something that’s definitely a huge part of this camp.”

In Leach’s 21 years as a Division-I head coach, nine of his teams didn’t even rush for 1,000 yards. His 2012 Washington State squad ran for just 349 yards all season. His 2014 team ran for 478 yards, and his 2020 Mississippi State team rushed for just 483 yards.

In Morris’ three seasons as a Division-I head coach, his teams have ran for at least 2,000 yards in each season — a number a Leach team never hit. The most was his 2016 Wazzu team that ran for 1,575 yards.

And it isn’t that Morris grew up with a fondness for pounding the rock in his heart. He was a slot receiver at Texas Tech, meaning he was having more fun when the ball was in the air.

As a junior in 2007, Morris had 767 receiving yards, and he had 771 receiving yards as a senior in 2008. That means there were seasons when Morris had more receiving yards than an entire Leach team would have rushing yards.

But it got to the point early in Morris’ coaching career that he started to note a trend.

“I think I really studied the first time when I became a head coach at Incarnate Word,” Morris said. “I think I was tired of at Texas Tech multiple times being the No. 1 offense in the nation and not having any championships that come along with it. So, I did a big study that year, and really, I studied. There were people winning championships that would call that they’re throwing the football and spreading it out a little bit. The Clemsons, at that time, were throwing the ball all the time. LSU, at that time, was throwing the ball and winning championships. And so really, when I went back and studied, we were running the ball for about 60 to 70 yards a game, and the people that were in the championships were rushing for about 150 to 175 yards a game, and that was a huge factor, kind of consistently with conference champions at different levels and with the national champions.

“So that’s something that we really took that study and tried to apply it on what our philosophy was in our game planning at Incarnate Word. As we started winning championships, we kind of married up with it, and same thing kind of last year with our team. I mean, we were an explosive offense and holistically, but we also are really efficient running the football.”

That study still holds true today. Of the past five national championship teams, none have averaged fewer than 160 rushing yards a game, with the average of those five teams being 188.98 rush yards a game.

Morris won two Southland Conference titles in four seasons at Incarnate Word, his first head coaching gig.

His 2018 championship team ran for 1,765 yards, or 160.5 a game. Incarnate Word got back to to the top of the Southland Conference mountain in 2021, Morris’ last year with the program, by running for 1,654 yards (127.2 a game).

That’s something he further expounded upon at North Texas, his second head coaching gig, where his Mean Green teams averaged 182.2 yards a game across his three seasons in charge.

It’s a similarity Morris shares with former OSU coach Mike Gundy. Gundy was known for his high-powered offenses, but that didn’t mean Gundy’s Cowboy teams were all pass. Chuba Hubbard led the nation in rushing under Gundy in 2019, and Ollie Gordon did so in 2023.

Morris’ passing scheme this upcoming season will probably more closely resemble some of the things Leach did, but it’ll come with a little (or a lot) more running mixed in.