Morris Takes Honor to Shrine

As senior wide receiver Carl Morris rubs elbows with the best college football players in the nation this week, there will be no denying that he belongs.

Morris, who is in San Francisco preparing for this Saturday’s East-West Shrine Game, has capped his record-breaking career by being named a Division I-AA First-Team All-American by the Associated Press. He is the first Crimson player to receive that honor since current Seattle Seahawks middle linebacker Isaiah Kacyvenski ’00 did in 1999. Morris is hopeful that the prestigious honor will bolster his own position as a pro prospect.

A two-time Ivy League Player of the Year, Morris leaves Harvard as the Crimson’s most prolific receiver ever, owning eight of the school’s nine major receiving records. He improved statistically each year of his college career, which culminated with a senior campaign in which he caught 90 passes for 1,288 yards, both school records.

The AP All-America honor is the latest in a long line of accolades bestowed upon Morris this offseason. Most notably, he was named to the American Football Coaches Association All-America Team and received the New England Football Writers Association’s Harry Agganis/Harold Zimman Award as the top senior in New England. In this weekend’s Shrine Game, he will line up on the same team as two Heisman Trophy finalist quarterbacks—Iowa’s Brad Banks and Miami’s Ken Dorsey—in the nation’s premier college all-star game.

But the AP honor holds special significance.

“It obviously means a lot to me; it’s a huge award,” Morris said. “But every personal honor reflects the team’s accomplishments and how well the offense was able to perform. Individual awards are great, but I’m especially proud of how the team was able to work together this year.”

In addition to Morris’ litany of awards and records, senior offensive lineman Jamil Soriano was tabbed by The Sports Network as a Third-Team All-American, while junior linebacker Dante Balestracci was a finalist for the Buchanan Award, presented annually to the best defensive player in Division I-AA. The Buchanan Award is the defensive equivalent of the Payton Award, for which Morris was a finalist.

Morris keyed a potent offense that amassed over 425 yards and almost 30 points per game. If not for a disappointing loss at Penn, the Crimson would have won consecutive Ivy titles for the first time under coach Tim Murphy.

But with all that now history, Morris has focused his attention toward improving his status for the NFL Draft, which will take place in New York’s Madison Square Garden the last weekend of April.

Having already received a formal invitation to the NFL scouting combine, he spent the majority of his holiday break working out with Atlanta’s renowned fitness guru and combine trainer Chip Smith. In recent years, Smith’s masterful training techniques have helped players such as Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and New York Jets receiver Santana Moss to dominate the combine and blossom into first-round selections.

The combine, which will be held in mid-February, annually puts pro prospects through a gauntlet of physical and mental tests, and is the most important showcase for NFL hopefuls.

But before Morris takes on the rigors of the combine, he will have a chance to prove himself against top competition in both the Shrine Game and February’s Hula Bowl, both of which will be nationally televised. With any luck, they will be the first of many national television appearances for Morris.