Lincoln Riley has his reasons for holding up QB’s transfer
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma football coach Lincoln Riley is being portrayed as the bad guy for not fully releasing QB Chandler Morris, who transferred to TCU after last season.
Morris, the son of former SMU and Arkansas head coach Chad Morris, played behind starter Spencer Rattler and Tanner Mordecai as a freshman last season at OU. Morris played in five games in 2020, but generally in garbage time when the game was well decided. He did, however, score the Oklahoma’s first touchdown on a two-yard run in the Big 12 Championship game against Iowa State.
Riley is not contending Morris’ transfer to TCU per se. The Sooner head coach’s concern has to do granting permission for Morris to have immediate eligibility, and more than that, to be allowed to play immediately in the same conference as the school he left.
“It’s unhealthy to encourage intraconference transfers.” — OU head coach Lincoln Riley
Morris was a member of the 2020 Oklahoma recruiting class, but he was third on the depth chart. With the country’s top dual-threat quarterback recruit, Caleb Williams, coming to OU for next season and Rattler already there and just in his second season in the starter’s role , the chances of Morris seeing any playing time were slim to none.
So, it is understandable that Morris wants to go somewhere where he can have a reasonable chance to compete for playing time, and that is not going to happen at the school now widely recognized as “Quarterback U.”
While Riley. at present, has every legal right to block a player who has requested a transfer from playing immediately at his new school, the public perception is not a good one.
Riley has said he is not against the nature of transfers in general. And that is well demonstrated in the fact that Oklahoma has benefited by being on the receiving end of multiple players who have transferred to OU during the time Riley has been in Norman. The problem the OU head coach has with the process is when a player transfers to another school in the same conference and is granted immediate eligibility.
“Myself, the leadership her at OU, we think it’s unhealthy for college football to encourage intraconference transfers,” Riley told reporters, including Ryan Aber, who covers Oklahoma for The Athletic, in a recent Zoom conference.
“I think the intraconference can complicate things, and the world of coaches understand the big picture and understand that’s gonna bring along a lot of negatives that I just don’t know we want in this game.”
While I understand Riley’s position on the issue and the potential problems that could result if there were a flood of players free to change schools within the same conference and compete against their former school without the deterrent of having to sit out a year, it is a position that is probably going to become moot in short order.
The NCAA has been seriously looking at this issue and is expected soon to adopt the rule allowing all student-athletes to be able to transfer with immediate eligibility. It appears that it isn’t a matter of if this rule change will be adopted, but when.
The Big 12 policy regarding transfers within the same conference is if the NCAA authorizes it, the Big 12 is all right with it. And there is recent precedent of this, ironically involving an Oklahoma football player.
Former OU quarterback Austin Kendall transferred to West Virginia after three seasons in Norman. Kendall’s misfortune was that he was the backup quarterback to two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks in Baker Mayfield (2016) and Kyler Murray (2018). And Jalen Hurts transferred in in 2019, so Kendall’s departure was no surprise.
Riley initially blocked Kendall’s transfer for the same principles he is advocating in Chad Morris’ situation. The Oklahoma head coach eventually relented, stating the relationship he had developed over several seasons with Kendall as his position coach and head coach, was the deciding factor.
Kendall also had already graduated when he left OU, which made him a graduate transfer, qualifying him by NCAA rule, in general, for immediate eligibility.
It’s probably safe to assume that Riley is at some point is going to step aside and allow Morris to play this coming season at TCU. The tide of public opinion, not to mention an anticipated NCAA rule change on the transfer issue, is going to render Riley’s position moot.