Swinney in the Twilight Zone with Morris, Scott back in town

Chad Morris was back at practice Friday.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sat Aug 05 07:00:16 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – Clemson can be compared to many things, but the Twilight Zone is a new one.

The Tigers returned to the practice field Friday afternoon for the initial practice of the 2023 fall camp, and plenty of familiar faces were taking part in the festivities. Along with the regular cast of former players who work in support roles – like Da’Quan Bowers and DeAndre McDaniel and Stephone Anthony and Corey Crawford, and others – safety TJ Green is back to earn his degree, along with running back great James Davis.

And then there’s head coach Dabo Swinney’s cheap labor project, Chad Morris, who will be an analyst this fall. The former offensive coordinator lives in the same neighborhood as Swinney, causing the head coach to compare his life to an episode of the old TV show.

“It’s like I’m living in the Twilight Zone,” Swinney told TigerNet when we asked about having Morris around. “I told him (Morris) that last night because I’m still not used to him being here. We had a late meeting last night and were walking around. I mean, (also former Clemson offensive coordinator) Jeff Scott’s moved two doors down from me. Kath (Kathleen Swinney) is taking food to them, and Chad Morris is in the building, and I’m going, ‘What? I am living in the Twilight Zone around here.’ But it’s been great.”

Morris left Clemson to become the head coach at SMU, and also had stops at Arkansas, at Allen High School in Texas, at Auburn, and USF and will now help out both the Clemson offense and defense in his analyst role.

“He’s very cheap labor, if you will, for his expertise,” Swinney said. “Obviously, he’s been a head coach, and he’s been a very successful coordinator as well. So, he’ll be one of those guys like a lot of these programs have, he’ll be a guy that’ll kind of be a week ahead.”

Morris left Clemson after the win over South Carolina in 2014 and until recently hadn’t been back.

“Chad’s awesome. He’s been gone for eight seasons. It’s crazy,” Swinney said. “The last time he had been at Clemson was the Sunday after the South Carolina game in 2014 is, when he left to go to SMU, and he hadn’t been back here since. So obviously, a lot has changed in eight years. A lot has changed. He hadn’t seen any of this building (Clemson Athletics Branding Institute), and obviously, as a program, we’ve been through a lot, etcetera, so it’s been great. And hopefully, we can really help him kind of reset himself. It’s going to be a great situation.”

The job as an analyst also means that Morris won’t have to be around on game days, and that latitude will allow him to head off on the weekends to watch his son Chandler, a quarterback at TCU.

“His son’s going to be the starting quarterback at TCU, I’m assuming, so he’ll get a chance to be a dad but also be able to help Clemson as well, something he really wanted to do, and just stay involved and stay engaged,” Swinney said. “So, he’ll be a week ahead and study the upcoming opponent’s offense, upcoming opponent’s defense and just give another layer, another lens, add some value and maybe help in some high school relations. Wherever he wants to jump in and help, we’ll see. But it’s good that it worked out that he could come back.”