Dylan Morris might be the second most important player on the University of Washington football roster for the coming season.
More than Bralen Trice, Rome Odunze and Edefuan Ulofoshio. Troy Fautanu, Jalen McMillan and Jabbar Muhammad, too.
Morris might not start or even play much for a potential Top 10 Husky team, but his readiness to take over at quarterback should anything disastrous happen to starter and Heisman Trophy candidate Michael Penix Jr. can't be understated.
The junior quarterback from Puyallup, Washington, carries as much pressure on his purple-shirted back to make the 2023 season work for the Huskies as does Penix.
It comes down to him being ready to play and show he's not the same guy who was at the wheel of an unforgettable 4-8 season in 2021 that cost coaches their jobs and players their football reputations, and left the program in tatters.
Morris has gone through 18 months of quarterback rehab as overseen by Husky coach Kalen DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, and he appears to be a better decision-maker who still possesses a lot of arm strength.
However, a stubborn and vocal faction of the UW fan base has made it clear it will never forgive Morris for the downturn, forcing the former two-year starter to deal with in-house negativity that none of his Husky teammates who shared in all of that 2021 losing faces today.
Going down the roster from No. 0 to 99, Morris, in jersey No. 5 on offense, is next up in a series of profiles about each of the Huskies' scholarship players and assorted walk-ons, where we sum up their spring football performances and surmise what might come next for them.
Unlike any other QB in his situation — as a former college starter who lost his job and is faced with a lengthy wait to run the show again — Morris didn't pack it in and flee to the transfer portal.
Former No. 3 quarterback Sam Huard blanched at the prospect of going two years in an inactive role on game day and transferred to Cal Poly and the Big Sky Conference this offseason. Not Morris.
A lot of programs, Big Sky and higher, would have welcomed the 6-foot, 202-pound Morris into their starting QB competitions, too, but he chose to stay in Montlake hoping to advance his game by learning from Grubb and teaming with Penix.
That's no easy decision for guy who no doubt hears the clock ticking on his career. Morris has been around so long he was involved in the intense 2019 quarterback battle where Jacob Eason beat out Jake Haener for the starting job, sending Haener to Fresno State — where he ended up playing for DeBoer and Grubb.
A year later, Morris pretty much came out of nowhere during the pandemic and beat out Ethan Garbers, Jacob Sirmon and Kevin Thomson for the starting job. That sent Garbers to UCLA, Sirmon first to Central Michigan and now Northern Colorado, and Thomson, a Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year at Sacramento State, pursuing a brief pro tryout and into coaching.
This past spring, Morris took reps only with the No. 2 offense, sharing his back-up role with no one. He looked particularly sharp early on in spring football before throwing a handful of scrimmage interceptions to an improving Husky defense to close out April.
While an injury to Penix would be a huge setback to the UW, the coaching staff is banking on Morris to give the Huskies a fighting chance to keep winning if it came down to that.
DYLAN MORRIS FILE
Service: Morris has appeared in 23 Husky football games and started 15, holding a 7-8 win-loss record as the starter. People conveniently forget Morris led the UW to a 3-1 record in 2020 and was named All-Pac-12 honorable mention. That season, he rallied the Huskies from a 21-0 deficit to beat Utah 24-21 with a 16-yard touchdown pass to Cade Otton with 36 seconds left to play. At Stanford in 2021, Morris threw a 20-yard scoring pass to Jalen McMillan with 21 seconds left, handed off on a two-point conversion and won 20-13 on the road. He can handle pressure.
Stats: People don't realize either that Morris has thrown nearly 500 passes for the Huskies. His career stat line: 296 completions in 489 attempts for 3,497 yards and 19 touchdowns, with 16 interceptions, including a league-leading 12 pass thefts in 2021.
Role: Morris has shown he can handle just about anything thrown at him, can pull out games, likely can withstand anything malicious you might say about him. Odds are he won't be the No. 1 signal-caller again at Washington until 2024 at the earliest, but he's now more a product of the Ryan Grubb School of Quarterbacking and not the damaged goods left in the ashes of the Jimmy Lake/John Donovan offensive disaster.
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