Photo Credit: Arkansas Athletics / North Texas Athletics
Arkansas football has hatred in its heart for a number of teams in the Lone Star State. There’s the historic rivalries with Texas and Texas A&M that have carried into the Southeastern Conference, as well as a number of old Southwest Conference foes like TCU and Baylor.
But there’s one particular school from Denton that will forever live in infamy for the Razorbacks.
That, of course, is the University of North Texas, solely for its role in delivering one of the trademark low points of the disastrous Chad Morris era. Exiled former Razorback quarterback Ty Storey leading Western Kentucky to a blowout win in Fayetteville was definitely the most embarrassing result of Morris’ tenure, but to pinpoint one play that summed up those two painful years, look no further than Sept. 16, 2018.
After trading punts to start the game, the Mean Green capitalized on a Cole Kelley interception to open the scoring. The Hogs then punted again, a pooch kick from near midfield that was caught at the 10-yard line by Keegan Brewer. After securing the ball, he bounced on his toes a couple times, not making an effort to run anywhere. Arkansas’ specialists assumed it to be a fair catch, and began jogging off the field. Brewer had apparently not made that signal, and took off the opposite direction for a 90-yard touchdown return.
North Texas ended up winning the game 44-17, an early indictment of the pain that was to come over the remainder of Morris’ reign of terror.
Now that the Head Hog position is open once again after Sam Pittman’s firing, it appears another UNT-adjacent Morris is trying to hijack the Arkansas football program.
On3 Spits in Arkansas’ Face…Again
On3 Sports has gotten in some hot water this year with Arkansas fans over some perceived disrespect in the basketball realm concerning the recruiting rankings of blue-chip guards Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas, as well as the Hogs’ head-scratching omission from the outlet’s preseason Top 25.
The latest update from the football coaching carousel is arguably an even bigger slap in the face for the Razorbacks. Pete Nakos reported Thursday that some names in discussion for the Arkansas job were SMU’s Rhett Lashlee, Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, USF’s Alex Golesh, UNLV’s Dan Mullen and, of course, interim head coach Bobby Petrino. Those are all pretty common names tossed in the ring since the job opened up.
But there’s a new contender on the list – North Texas head coach Eric Morris.
Oh boy.
You’d be forgiven for not being familiar with Morris’ name, as he’s mostly been operating in the periphery of this year’s coaching carousel. He’s been mentioned as a legitimate candidate for the open job at Oklahoma State, and a Big 12 gig would be a good fit for the 39-year-old.
To be clear, this isn’t meant to be a hit piece on Morris. The Littlefield, Texas, native has some legitimate coaching bonafides that make him a compelling candidate for a Power Four job.
A product of the Mike Leach coaching tree, Morris was Kliff Kingsbury’s offensive coordinator at Texas Tech when Patrick Mahomes came through the ranks. As the head coach at Incarnate Word, Morris put together a 24-18 record over four years, but his most noteworthy accomplishment was developing quarterback Cam Ward, who followed him from UIW to Washington State.
To back up Ward in 2022, Morris brought in a three-star recruit by the name of John Mateer. Ward finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting after transferring to Miami, and Mateer is on the shortlist for that award at Oklahoma this season.
Now in his third season as the head coach at UNT, the Mean Green boast a top-10 scoring offense and were off to a 5-0 start before Friday night’s massacre at the hands of Alex Golesh’s South Florida squad.
That hot start was an outlier, however.
Good Luck, Coach Morris
Morris’ first two years in Denton were pedestrian, by all measures. The Mean Green went 5-7 in 2023 and 6-7 last year with a loss in the First Responder Bowl. Less than a year ago, many North Texas fans were calling for Morris’ head. This fall was viewed as a “make or break” campaign for the offensive hotshot who plays “entertaining yet frustrating” football.
The Mean Green have defeated FCS Lamar, and boast narrow overtime victories over Western Michigan and Army. UNT did beat the brakes off Washington State at home, but Morris’ head coaching record is far from remarkable – most of his acumen is credited to his quarterback development at previous stops. A Texas boy through and through, he also has deep ties to the Lone Star State’s high school scene and runs an up-tempo, high-flying spread offense.
Does any of that sound familiar to you?
Chad Morris’ best record as a head coach before taking the Arkansas job was a 7-5 mark in his final season at SMU. He was more known for his days as an offensive coordinator at Clemson, where he developed multiple blue-chip quarterbacks and led a number of high-scoring, championship-caliber units. He also had extensive ties to the state of Texas from his days as a high school coach.
If anything, Chad Morris had a more impressive resume in 2017 than Eric Morris does right now.
Despite his unremarkable 14-22 record over three years, Arkansas’ Morris received a lot of credit for turning around a dumpster fire at SMU. Golesh has performed a similar feat at USF, a cellar-dwelling program that he steered to bowl games in his first two seasons before starting off 2025 with upset wins over Boise State and Florida.
But North Texas has been a respectable Group of Five program over the last decade. Morris’ predecessor, Seth Littrell, had six bowl appearances in seven seasons. He reached the nine-win threshold twice and appeared in a pair of Conference USA title games. One of those came in his final season, when he was fired a couple days after falling short of the CUSA crown.
Lashlee gets some flak from antsy Razorback fans for the simple fact that he coaches at SMU, despite his vastly different resume from Chad Morris. The trauma is strong, understandably so. The shockingly similar resumes and shared last names of the two playcallers should be plenty to scare Arkansas’ brass off.
Morris going below .500 in his first two seasons was a marked underperformance. His bonafides as an offensive mind are unquestionable, and his resume is likely good enough to land him a Big 12 job in the next couple cycles.
Morris’ Mean Green faced their first real test against Golesh’s Bulls on Friday night and got absolutely handled. At this moment, Arkansas should not make the mistake of hiring Morris.
If the coaching search goes that far down the list, something will have gone seriously wrong.
But we all know how these types of things go. If I had to make a prediction, count on Morris’ Oklahoma State Cowboys coming to Fayetteville and beating Arkansas in 2027.
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