AUBURN | Chad Morris has been in Auburn less than a week and can’t seem to get away from Bo Nix. He sees the freshman quarterback at practice, he’s in the film room with him and when he goes to his office, there’s Nix again.
And Morris absolutely loves it.
“He can’t get enough film work with me, he can’t come in the office enough. He’s picking my brain and wanting to know what I see,” Morris said. “That’s exciting because you know you have a quarterback that wants to be elite and is going to do what it takes to be elite.”
Morris knows what it takes to develop elite quarterbacks. Tajh Boyd was named the ACC Player of the Year in 2012 under Morris’ tutelage and he recruited, signed and coached two-time Heisman Trophy finalist Deshaun Watson as a freshman. At SMU, Ben Hicks threw for 3,569 yards and 33 touchdowns in 2017.
Even two of his high school quarterbacks in Stephenville, Texas — the late Jevan Snead and Garrett Gilbert — became top-tier recruits and eventual Texas signees.
“His track record of quarterbacks is really encouraging. I just feel really honored to be a part of that list,” said Nix, who was named SEC Freshman of the Year after accounting for 2,637 all-purpose yards and 22 touchdowns this fall. “I'll just continue to learn things about him, learn how he does things — because every coach will do things differently. So I'll just continue to learn him, and he'll continue to learn me. Hopefully we can be a great team.”
Morris looks for one very important characteristic when recruiting quarterbacks, and believes Nix already possesses plenty of it.
“There’s one thing that stands in mind is they’re winners,” Morris said. “They’re winners on the field, they’re winners off the field. They come from winners. Their parents are winners. One of our quarterbacks that we had in the past had a mom and she had three jobs. She’s a winner.
“When you look at Bo, he’s a winner. That’s all he knows. He comes from a winning family. Being able to observe him on the other side of the field this year and watching his skillset and watching him develop this year from game one to when we played him, you just saw progress each week.”
Nix is determined to make even more progress heading into the Outback Bowl matchup against Minnesota Jan. 1. Morris won’t have the same say-so over the offense and play calling he’s expected to have by next season, but it will still be his first opportunity to coach Nix in a game.
“I know that he's been through a lot of bowl games, he's been through a lot of quarterbacks. He's done a lot of things and has gotten a lot of experience. I'm just trying to pick his brain and soak up everything he can tell me about getting ready for the opponent in Minnesota,” Nix said.
“Continue to learn about defense, continue to learn about what they're trying to do to us. This year, I feel like I had a really good foundation with Coach (Kenny) Dillingham. Just piggy-backing off that with Coach Morris and everything that he's seen, I feel like I can just continue to grow. There's so much left that I have to continue to learn.”
Auburn will continue bowl practice through Saturday before breaking for Christmas and then reporting to Tampa, Fla., Dec. 26. The 12th-ranked Tigers will take on No. 18 Minnesota Jan. 1 at noon CT on ESPN.
