North Texas hires Washington State OC Eric Morris as head coach

Publish date: 2024-06-12

North Texas hired Washington State offensive coordinator Eric Morris as head football coach, the program announced Tuesday. Here’s what you need to know:

Morris is replacing Seth Littrell, who was fired earlier this month after seven seasons. Littrell went 44-44 during his Mean Green tenure.
North Texas went 7-6 during 2022 and will play Boise State in the Frisco Bowl on Saturday.
Morris was the head coach at Incarnate Word before joining Washington State. He is a former Texas Tech receiver who was also on staff there for several years.

Backstory

Morris built Incarnate Word into a strong FCS program. He’s a Lone Star State native who spent nearly all his career in Texas outside of his two separate seasons at Washington State. He built the UIW program into what it is now, including a 10-3 season a year ago and an 11-1 record in 2022. Morris was also a finalist for the Texas State job that went to G.J. Kinne.

Why Morris?

Morris has deep ties in the state of Texas and head-coaching experience. Throughout his coaching career, Morris has led and been a part of prolific offenses at Texas Tech, Houston, Incarnate Word and Washington State, where he made two stops, one under Mike Leach in 2012 before returning to Pullman in 2022. Morris has extensive experience recruiting Texas, having spent a decade coaching in the state.

A former Texas Tech receiver under Leach, Morris started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Houston before joining Leach at Washington State as inside receivers coach. He returned to Lubbock as offensive coordinator for Kliff Kingsbury’s Texas Tech teams from 2013-17.

Morris got his first head-coaching job in 2018 at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, guiding the Cardinals to one of the best turnarounds in the FCS, taking a team that was 1-10 the year before his arrival and taking them to a 6-4 record, a Southland Conference championship and the program’s first FCS Playoff appearance.

Morris recruited overlooked quarterback prospect Cameron Ward to UIW and the pair took the Cardinals to another conference title, a 10-3 record and reached the second round of the playoffs in 2021. Ward won the Jerry Rice Award as the FCS’ top freshman. Morris left after that season to join the Washington State staff and Ward joined him as a transfer soon thereafter. — Khan

What does Morris inherit at North Texas?

The Mean Green made it to consecutive bowl games and just came off an appearance in the Conference USA title game, where they lost to UTSA. This is not a massive rebuild, as Littrell constructed a solid program in Denton, Texas, and there is good talent on the roster.

North Texas is changing conferences, moving into the American Athletic Conference in 2023. The school’s desire to be more competitive as it transitions up motivated it to make a coaching change: UNT went 3-17 against FBS teams who ended the season with a winning record in the last four years and were 14-20 against future AAC opponents during Littrell’s tenure.

The school has invested significantly in football. It opened Apogee Stadium in 2011, an indoor practice facility in 2019 that’s the third-largest of its kind in Texas and paid Littrell $1.9 million, near the top of C-USA. Morris will have plenty of resources at his disposal, plus one of the most fertile recruiting grounds to pull from: the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. UNT is hoping Morris will capitalize on that to bring the program greater success. — Khan

What they’re saying

“From early in our process Eric was able to clearly articulate his vision for UNT and what we can do in the short term to build momentum as we transition to the American Athletic Conference,” athletic director Jared Mosley said in a release. “Among a deep and talented pool of candidates Eric distinguished himself with his great energy and strong track record as a championship head coach and a proven developer of talent. As a Texas native, he has deep relationships across the state, and he understands the importance of connecting with campus and the local community.”

Added Morris: “As a native Texan, I understand the pride and standard of Mean Green football and I am humbled to be able to lead this storied program. My wife, Maggie, and our boys are so excited to return home. We can’t wait to meet the team and get to work.”

Required reading

(Photo: Richard Rodriguez / Getty Images)