Previously: Last year’s profiles. S Damani Dent, S/Nk Zeke Berry, S/HSP Keon Sabb, CB Myles Pollard, CB/Nk Kody Jones, CB Will Johnson, LB Deuce Spurlock, LB Jimmy Rolder, DE/LB Micah Pollard, DE Derrick Moore, DT Mason Graham, DT Kenneth Grant, DT Cam Goode, T Andrew Gentry, T/G Connor Jones, G Alessandro Lorenzetti, C Olu Oluwatimi, TE Marlin Klein, TE Colston Loveland, WR Amorion Walker.

Bolingbrook, Ill. – 6'0"/175
[via Instagram]		247: 6'0/175             4.42*	4*, 94, #104 overall #18 WR, #4 IL
		Rivals: 6'0/175             4.34*	4*, 5.9, #155 overall #25 WR, #5 IL
		ESPN: 6'0/170             4.27*	4*, 82, #19 MW, #180 ovr #24 WR, #5 IL
		On3: 6'0/175             3.99*	4*, 91, NR overall #45 WR, #9 IL
		Composite:             4.46*	4*, 0.9462, #133 ovr #22 WR, #4 IL
		Other Suitors	ND, UF, Mizz, MN, PSU
		YMRMFSPA	Ronnie Bell or Golden Tate or maybe Roy Roundtree
Previously On MGoBlog	Hello by me.
Notes	AA Bowl (invite). IG. Twitter. Early Enrollee.
Film:
7v7 and Junior Highlights: Hudl. 7v7.

One of the things we track with recruiting, especially with players who get ranked early, is where the rankings move from there. There's always gravity downward as the cycle reveals more guys worthy of high rankings, but previous rankings tend to be sticky. That means going up usually means they didn't go up far enough, and vice versa, while stagnant slippage is taken to mean no change unless the total slip takes a guy from top-50 to well out of it. When that happens, either they overrated a guy early and don't want to say so, or else the guy got injured, and therefore had no chance to defend his rank.

Thus was the case of Tyler Morris, en route to five-stardom, or near enough, through a sophomore campaign of 1700 total yards of offense and 24 touchdowns plus a full winter of camp obliteration. Then his 7v7 and summer camp tours were canceled by the pandemic. His junior season was delayed until the following spring, by which point his quarterback, JJ McCarthy, had bolted to IMG. That suppressed Nazareth's passing attack and forced them to use Morris in other ways, in addition to safety. It was on defense, at the very end of his Spring 2021 campaign, that Morris tore his ACL, canceling another summer of camps and his entire senior season.

The rankers didn't wait around, but nor did they forget. Morris was the 2nd-highest recruit in Michigan's class when he committed, and remained so until Moore, Sabb, Clemons, and Berry joined near Singing Day. But that wasn't the expectation. We were bracing for a charge up the ranks, followed by a clash between academics not seen since Newton vs. Leibniz. Except both Michigan and Notre Dame knew they needed to wrap this up before an OSU or A&M or Bama decided they couldn't leave a top-25 talent to some cathelopistemiad that's going to waste good football hours on scholarly pursuits.

Instead, Morris's last year in high school would be spent healing, rehabbing, and watching the finds from lost seasons slip ahead of him. On3 moved him *up,* but only to still come out well below the other three. What should have been a triumphant announcement, perhaps coming down to the wire, literally limped in on crutches.

That's unfortunate because if you could design the ideal Harbaugh wide receiver recruit from scratch, you'd probably get Tyler Morris. And Michigan certainly acted like it the entire cycle, from Gattis seizing on JJ McCarthy's favorite target with as much zeal as the rest of the program seized on McCarthy himself, to acting like A&M might be lurking around the corner any minute right up to Signing Day. As far as they were concerned, what Devin Bush Jr. was to "solving your problems with aggression," Morris was to Gattis's plans for #SpeedinSpace.

Gattis is gone, but his philosophy remains deeply embedded in the offense. While fans like me still covet the long-limbed jump-ballers who wear #1 or #4, the program has spent the last three seasons gearing its passing game around athletes who will lose any cornerback who doesn't have inside help, and make fools out of the help. The trick to these guys, who tend to lead their teams in targets (but not TDs) is the hardest thing to scout, a natural understanding of routes and how to take advantage of space inside the coverage bubble. And yet all we have since 2019 is some 7v7 tape and a condensed junior year in the spring of 2021, half of that on defense. So,

[After THE JUMP: Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value the may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.]

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The consensus remains that Morris is a "specimen." And like any other scientific object, for every five papers that agree, one will come along and deny all their findings.

Mutation in RORB linked to WTFWT saltatorial locomotion

Morris was born to make his body move with the kind of agility, precision, and explosion that is evident the first time the kid gets on a swing. He won the 15-16 high jump at the AAU Junior Olympic games in 2018, and ran his first sub-12 100-meter dash before high school with a 36. Donovan Peoples-Jones had a 36!

Allen Trieu, 24/7’s Midwest analyst, could see it when Morris stepped on a practice field:

That athleticism has shown up whenever we have seen him in-game or at a 7-on-7 or camp. He has made some spectacular plays where he gets up into the air and comes down with the ball. He adjusts to passes very well and has natural body control.

It's also kinda hard not to notice in camps or 7v7 settings. Rivals' Josh Helmholdt had Morris in his backyard and remembers impressive physical tools as well as the high jump. ND homer Tom Loy fell in love at a camp way back in the summer of 2019:

better than expected. He was extremely hard to handle during the one-on-ones and had his way with everyone he went against. He attacked the ball in the air, ran tight routes and caught everything thrown his way.

Nazareth Academy head coach Tim Racki, who coached 10 percent of the five-stars to come through Chicago in his time, called Morris "one of those 1-percenters that you get in your coaching career."

“Michigan’s getting a special one. He’s a rare breed. … It’s confidence and focus … You watch his highlights, you can see his incredible body control, athleticism, incredible hands. He catches anything thrown at him. I’ve lost count of how many one-handed catches I’ve seen him make since he was a freshman with us. Just incredibly disciplined and poised, composure in big games. And this goes back to when he was a freshman. I knew he was special.”

But Chicagoans didn't get to keep this guy a secret. Morris toured the country with McCarthy and OSU commit/equally desired Gattis target Kaleb Brown on the Midwest Boom team. In a single day in February 2020 Morris made Trieu's writeup in Chicago for big catches, then impressed ND people running a regional showcase in Crown Point, Indiana, that afternoon:

Morris came to the event, turned in a Top 10 overall rating, and then went through a full workout. His routes are excellent, easily the most smooth on the day, and he catches everything thrown his way.

In January 2021, Morris was a top performer at the Pylon 7v7 tournament in Dallas to both 247 and Rivals. A few weeks later he was runner up for "Alpha Dog" in Myrtle Beach to 247 national analyst Steve Wiltfong and Rivals’ Chad Simmons (with video):

Tyler Morris showed a burst after the catch, and what he can do after he has the ball in his hands stood out. He caught the ball in stride, he ran past defenders, and the four-star wide receiver out of Illinois created a buzz inside the stadium early.

Trieu compared him to Notre Dame's Will Fuller, the lean (6'0"/186) route artisan who had over a quarter of his team's targets in 2014 and 2015. Fuller also ran a 4.32 forty at the Combine, but he was a 4.52 guy with 30.6 vertical out of high school. Morris is about the same size, but his Hudl calls him a 4.6 guy with a 36-inch vertical. Kinda different.

Brandon Brown, formerly of here and Rivals, said Morris plays bigger than his size "because of his ability to go up and get the ball" but also plays like a guy his size:

He's fast, quick, gets separation and catches the ball naturally. He has really good body control.

When it comes time to project that to receiver, a lot of scouts came down on a "does everything well" take. MGoFish described "an exceptional athlete that plays multiple sports … and shows off that quick twitch athleticism and burst on the football field. He’s a receiver that can do a little bit of everything."

On3's Charles Power, oddly, decried even the athleticism:

Kinetic scientists link catching ability with a number of physical factors, but good preparation seems to be a major one, which is one reason older receivers perform better, and why guys who are more open (and thus have longer to adjust to the ball in flight) are dramatically more likely to bring it in. This seems to be Morris's game. 247 national analyst Steve Wiltfong:

The most clutch receiver in the camp … seemed to come up with the big plays whenever Midwest Boom needed them. Very reliable, a terrific route runner, a player that understands how to get open with terrific leaping ability.

MGoFish describes "very good hands and ability to spot the ball early in his route."

Developing configurations for space motion planning in dynamic environments

Right, the artisanal routes. Everywhere that and catching are so closely linked I wonder how much the latter is a function of the former. EJ Holland took to calling Morris a "tactical" route runner. Morris's bespoke routes also led Helmholdt's evaluation:

I first saw Morris at a camp in Chicago about two weeks before he landed his first offer during his freshman season. Even then he showed a polish to his game that belied his years, and continues to be one of his strongest assets. Morris has a keen understanding of the receiver position, from how to get his release from the line of scrimmage to how to find the soft spots in zones to knowing how to set up defensive backs and create separation.

He sees Morris in the slot for this reason. Sinclair called Morris "smooth, elusive, and intelligent" with "exceptional ball skills" and claimed something called the It Factor. Midwest Boom founder J.R. Niklos compared Morris's feel for spacing to some of the guys he played with in the pros:

"I think he’s as special as it gets as a wide receiver in this class. Every college coach I talked to I said this kid is special. He reminds me of a Larry Fitzgerald, Steve Smith, the type of receiver that will get 200 yards and you don’t realize it. He catches everything, he knows how to get open in zone, he knows how to defeat man, He’s as special a receiver we’ve had and we’ve had some pretty darn good receivers in our classes.

Niklos had Jordan Westerkamp, Kyle Prater, Mikey Dudek, Christian Gibbs, Rashied Davis, and a lot of excellent former Big Ten West running backs. Racki described a kid whose "football IQ is off the charts" who was the key to their state title run as a true freshman. Trieu links the fluidity and loose hips to the routes and elusiveness after the catch, but also admits Morris "shows good instincts for finding space as a route runner."

He is a fluid, agile player. That shows up as a route-runner where he can shift gears and change directions smoothly and create separation. He also has great elusiveness after the catch. In his route-running, he also shows instincts for finding open areas.

On3's Tim Verghese called Morris "extremely polished" even without senior film to evaluate, praising his "ball-tracking ability and field vision." Charles Power went further:

He’s crafty … A crafty receiver that can line up outside or in the slot. Good ball skills, obviously has a connection with JJ McCarthy you know, being a former high school teammate of his. Very good player that can track the ball downfield.

Helmholdt says Morris possesses a "keen understanding of the receiver position, from how to get his release from the line of scrimmage to how to find the soft spots in zones to knowing how to set up defensive backs and create separation." EdgyTim thought Morris "as fluid a route runner as anyone in this positional group." Holland added he thinks Morris’s route-running is better than half of the receivers at Michigan right now:

Morris knows how to create separation and while he's not a burner, he's quick in and out of his breaks. Morris also has a high football IQ and a deep understanding of the game. He has the flexibility to play inside or outside and again, has the body control to make some acrobatic grabs. If I had to make a player comparison, it would be Ohio State's Garrett Wilson, who I covered during my time on the Texas beat.

This was evident early. Sinclair described a 15-year-old with the routes of someone twice his age:

He’s a tremendous student, he’s all business, and he’s beyond his years from the standpoint of intelligence and maturity. Watching Morris run routes and leap, twist, and extend for footballs, there’s an incredibly smooth way about him. If I was coaching high school wide receivers, I’d have them study Morris on film. Describing Morris as polished would understating how good-looking his routes and breaks are.

247's Mike Roach thought Morris would be a "reliable chain mover" in college. Do we have a consensus? Nope. In a paper published this spring, Morris criticized previous studies for leaving out critical parameters like reading the opposition.

“Bellamy has taught us to look at the defense, which is something in high school, you really don’t look at the defense,” Morris said. “But looking at the leverage pre-snap, where the safeties might roll and the different coverages they might be in. I feel like I’ve definitely learned a lot, in terms of reading coverages.”

Modeling escape success in terrestrial predator-wide receiver interactions

The main reason I kept thinking Golden Tate when watching Morris tape was how often he managed to twist out of tackles, or at least turn contact into a continued stumble forward. Trieu noted the loose hips help him after the catch and his effectiveness on jet sweeps and screens, a position echoed by Helmholdt.

Brandon Brown was the one to really dive into the thing Tate was great at with the Lions:

He's fast, quick, gets separation and catches the ball naturally. … His biggest strength, however, is creating once the ball is in his hands. He lines up all over the formation, including in the backfield, and is very natural as a runner. He makes people miss in space, breaks tackles often for someone of his stature and has enough long speed to pull away once he gets into the open field.

This time Professor Magnus of Touch the Banner was the reviewer disagreeing with our paper's conclusions.

When he’s lined up on defense, I’m impressed by his ability to change direction and come out of his breaks. For whatever reason, he does not look as shifty when he has the ball in his hands. However, he does have good quickness and sneaky acceleration. He has the ability to be a good route runner, and he covers up the ball in traffic. …  He looks like a Ronnie Bell-type receiver, a guy who can get open but won’t take the top off a defense. And Morris does not have quite the same ability to run after the catch.

Keep in mind that TTB watches the game film, whereas the recruiting sites seem to be largely going off their observations in 7v7 settings.

Target mass positively linked to interpersonal dominance in dyadic receiving interactions

Though they were mostly describing a kid under 16 because of the cut-off date for our data, even people observing Morris in street clothes note he needs to "add some bulk and strength" (Trieu), that he's "slightly built" (TTB), and "on the smaller side for the position" (Helmholdt), and "not very tall at 6-0, and he's also pretty slight at just 175 pounds." (Brown). Racki told 24/7 he almost didn’t let Morris play on varsity at first because  the freshman was so small.

In May Morris admitted he's "on the smaller side for a receiver but…"

really feel like I can still go up and get the ball when I need to," Morris said. "My size doesn’t hold me back with anything. I’m explosive and really aim to be the best route runner in the country. I think when it comes down to it I make plays and am always ready to compete."

But rather than testing this theory, he was quickly back in the lab trying to remedy it:

“Honestly, I’m trying to get bigger and stronger for next year because weight is something I think I’m a little behind in," Morris told 247Sports’s [analyst Sean] Bock. "I’ve been focusing on that."

ND reporter Kevin Sinclair said Morris “stacked on 15 pounds of muscle since his sophomore year” suggesting takes from back when Morris was 15 years old might be a little outdated. But Sinclair also reported a height of 5'10" as of February 2021.

I also spoke to a defensive coordinator I know from the area, and who couldn’t convince Morris to come play cornerback. As a receiver he said Morris “is like too many Ohio State guys” is still growing, and will probably be up to 6-1/190 when he steps on the field at Michigan.

He told The Wolverine that enrolling early helped his physical development since. His weight in fall will be one of the more interesting to see.

Measuring velocity-based loading on acceleration kinetics and kinematics during go routes

As the 4.6 forty in his Hudl suggests, Morris's top speed may be his biggest limiting factor, though only in that he's not ELITE-elite, if the dude still ran an 11.5 100-meter (and 4.2 shuttle), especially since that mark seems to have been set as a freshman. Sinclair says the last time he played there were criticisms of "whether he has what would be true breakaway speed on the college level." MGoFish called him "Not the fastest in the world but more than fast enough" with the route-running chops to make up for it.

On the other side here is Harbaugh"

When Morris signed his National Letter of Intent last December, Jim Harbaugh compared him to Roman Wilson, citing his speed and ability to change direction.

“Can do the reverses, very shifty and really good,” Harbaugh said.

Roman Wilson he says. Roman Wilson is one of the top five or six fastest guys in football. On any level.

Spontaneous healing in complete ACL ruptures: a clinical and MRI study

Morris went up for his 2nd interception in his last game of the spring season. He caught it. Then he came down.

“I was floating out trying to guard the receiver and went up for the ball,” Morris said. “I came down with it and felt my knee buckle. I don’t really know what happened after that, but I couldn’t walk on it or anything. I was hoping it wasn’t my ACL. I felt my bones kind of move, so I was hoping I just dislocated my knee. But I knew it wasn’t good.”

By a year ago he told Holland he was…

a little ahead of schedule as far as being able to walk. I got my brace off a week or two earlier than I was supposed to. Everything is going good so far.”

He shared the full story with Holland last October, at which point Morris was wrapping up rehab. He was in town for the Ohio State game, at which point he said he was "close to 100%" and running routes, but as of Signing Day he told Holland he was still having to work on his hard cuts.

Morris was still in street clothes for the spring game, but spoke to the media in May, saying he was 100 percent and would be out of the brace when fall camp started. Getting back on track strength-wise will take longer, but Morris shouldn't be set back much more than a typical fall enrollee would have.

Defensive back?

He played it, and looked it, and if he didn't look like an ideal receiver for Michigan's system, we'd be entertaining the notion.

Etc. Track. Kick & punt returner. Academic-minded: 3.8 GPA, Northwestern offer, mom is a social worker at an elementary school.

Why Ronnie Bell or Golden Tate or Maybe Roy Roundtree? Well, he's Bell: Skinny, super-quick, super-athletic speed-in-space weapon who runs excellent routes, has excellent hands, and loves to get open underneath, break a tackle, and tack on YAC. Bell was way less heralded, but that was from playing basketball until it was too late for the sites to scout him, whereas Morris went to every 7v7 camp. Like Morris, Bell also was recovering from an ACL injury when he enrolled; in fact Morris is further along now than Bell was. Morris is what Bell should have been had been scouted. Bell's certainly usable outside, but he's most effective as a route artisan from the slot who generates yards after the catch with his great body control. Every so often you get a ridiculous catch. The other difference is Bell tends to accelerate away from pursuit.

That's why I couldn't help pointing out the similarities to a former Domer/Lion. This is pretty exact:

If you’ve watched a lot of Detroit Lions football you knew what I meant by Golden Tate, the extremely reliable favorite target of Matt Stafford who broke tackles at a prodigious rate and owned the 4th quarter. If you aren’t a Lions follower, congratulate yourself for making good and healthy choices, then think back to the Michigan-Notre Dame battles when Tate routinely put poor damn Thomas Gordon in a blender.

Every time I say "but that's more Golden Tate" about something Tyler Morris does, someone comes back with "Ronnie Bell does that too!" and it's hard to argue. When I think of Tate's game however, he was the hourglass-shaped 5'10"/190 guy on 3rd and 9 who got open underneath, slipped the tackle that would have made it 4th and 6, squirmed past that guy to get to around 4th and 1, then pinballed well past the marker. The acceleration, great hands, and natural feel for where defenders are and how to avoid them are what made Tate's game, though he ran a 4.42 forty at the combine. In the 1980s a guy like that was considered a running back; today they're highly valuable chain-movers in the slot.

Roy Roundtree is another comp, for the catching and leaping and just-okay speed, and certainly his slight build that doesn't seem to bother him. Or we could go with any Northwestern slot receiver from the past decade that they make their entire offense out of.

Guru Reliability: Precise, not necessarily accurate. They all got to see him a lot, but most of that was a global pandemic ago. There were a few 7v7s in 2020 before the pandemic, a curtailed season when he had to play RB and DB as much as his ultimate destination, then nothing since April 2021 but rehabbing an ACL.

Variance: Low. Very polished, very projectable, and ACL tears have gone from career-sappers to bumps in the road. Like Blake Corum, Morris has a mania for improving, and a maturity and focus that should make him more likely to avoid common pitfalls for college students like, oh, those I fell into.

Ceiling: Very High. A smaller, slighter guy who doesn't have Roman Wilson speed caps out at a very good player but not a Jaxson Smith-Njigba.

General Excitement Level: Very high. We're talking abut the kind of guy you run your day-to-day offense through, who gives you a much higher 3rd down success rate than is fair, and wins some jump balls you have no business attempting. Guys like Morris get underrated all the time, then notice this guy is leading your team in targets, and generate a HOT TAKE based on advanced metrics like Expected Points Added or Points Above Average. Even I need the full triple-covered Braylon to go into the stratosphere on receivers, but sneer at the dude who can RPO and zig route you into the red zone on a regular basis at your own peril.

Projection: I'm going to copy-paste from the Hello:

Morris is the first guy since Ronnie Bell who really projects as a go-to underneath receiver. You’ve seen this work at Northwestern, Ohio State, and every NFL team of the 2010s. Morris is the kind of guy who can get 15 targets a game and turn those into 11 first downs and 200 yards.

I then went on about how Ronnie Bell was unlikely to be back in 2022 and Xavier Worthy would replace him, but as much as things, the more they remain the same for Morris's future. He'll get a year to build up from rehabbing high schooler to college-sized while Bell finishes up, getting in his four games so he's ready to form a platoon with AJ Henning in 2023.

Remember, Henning was a Boom guy with McCarthy as well. The plan all along has been to give McCarthy two of his besties with very different skillsets out of the position for his upperclass years. Michigan could also use Morris outside depending on how how long it takes the NFL to snatch up Cornelius Johnson, Roman Wilson, and Andrel Anthony. But given his classmates, his quarterback, his abilities, and what the slot position looks like with Sainristil called over to defense, I'm pretty comfortable predicting a future where by 2024 or 2025 Tyler Morris is getting the plurality of Michigan's targets, and not nearly enough respect. Long live science!