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Sunday, December 12, 2021
A reserve running back at Nebraska a little more than a month ago, Sevion Morrison announced Sunday night he’ll soon be calling Kansas home.
A 6-foot, 210-pound back from Tulsa, Okla., Morrison was a freshman this past season, and finished with 30 carries for 116 yards and three touchdowns, while appearing in seven games for the Huskers. It was his second season with the program, but he didn’t play in any games in 2020.
Morrison decided to leave the program in November, with just a few weeks left in the season, and entered his name in the transfer portal.
Not long ago, Morrison was a highly regarded high school prospect in the Class of 2020. Rivals rated him as a four-star talent at Edison High, and ranked him as the No. 2 overall senior in the state of Oklahoma that year.
Before signing with Nebraska, Morrison picked up scholarship offers from numerous Power Five programs, including Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas State and Baylor.
It was during an official visit to KU this weekend, Morrison told Jon Kirby of Jayhawk Slant, that he decided to commit to the Jayhawks. Morrison said the “number one thing” that stood out to him while checking out the program was head coach Lance Leipold.
“He’s just very genuine. He's very transparent with everything,” Morrison said. “The second thing is how close it is to home. There are people that I already know there, and I have some connections there.”
Morrison said he plans to enroll at KU for the spring semester, so he will be able to train and practice with the Jayhawks throughout the offseason.
Leipold has made no secret about his staff’s intentions to make use of the portal this offseason, as they fill out the 2022 roster. Morrison’s commitment came two days after KU brought in another former Big Ten player, Kalon Gervin, formerly a cornerback at Michigan State.
Morrison joins a KU running back group with plenty of depth — though that was tested late this past season due to numerous injuries. The Jayhawks are expected to return freshman Devin Neal, sophomore Daniel Hishaw Jr., redshirt sophomore Torry Locklin, redshirt freshmen Amauri Pesek-Hickson and Malik Johnson, as well as others, from the 2021 roster.
Comments
Len Shaffer
Wow! I love that Leipold is getting four-star HS recruits, even if they may not have completely panned out yet in college. To be rated that highly as a recruit, that means the talent is clearly there, and with great coaching they can still be tremendous additions. (Of course we'll know we've truly arrived when he starts getting four-star recruits directly from high school.)
9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Andy Godwin
You can't have too many quality players at every position. Even with the running back depleted at the end of the year, KU was still competitive against TCU and West Virginia. A stable and efficient running game is important to control the clock, which shortens the games against the high-powered offenses in the Big 12. It will be fun once players are officially signed and/or arrive on campus, to see how Spring ball is run for the first time by Leipold and his staff.
9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Dirk Medema
While “ Leipold has made no secret about his staff’s intentions to make use of the portal this offseason, as they fill out the 2022 roster”, I don’t recall reading that. It completely makes sense and explains to some extent the complete lack of anything regarding recruits during the season. All their energy needed to be going into catching up from the missed spring.
It seems that the offense in particular was a mess in Lincoln last year. Frost took a pay cut and changed at least the OC. Harbaugh pulled a similar move in Ann Arbor last year. Whether it works in Lincoln isn’t nearly as significant as now having multiple 4*s deciding to leave historically elite programs to join Coach Leipold in building (rebuilding?) the program. I can see their voices being significant in recruiting future HS players.
9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Armen Kurdian
The portal seems to be the new norm. This goes beyond trying to juice up your program w/a bunch of juco transfers...there's just going to be a lot of this. The new NCAA rules about self-promotion and marketing are not going to help either.
9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Layne Pierce
We can be sure that Coach Leipold knows something we don't, because we have a lot of running backs., almost too many who could play. Hinshaw, and Neal are going to battle, and then there is this fine gentleman nad Pejsek-Hickson.
RCJH
9 months, 2 weeks ago
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