Editor’s Note: This is the seventh of a 19-part daily series that seeks to answer the questions surrounding the 2010 Penn State football team. Check back every weekday until the Blue-White Game to see the question of the day. Wednesday, we asked: ‘Who Will Replace Penn State’s No. 1 Draft Pick?‘ Today we ask: ‘How fast is Stephon Morris?‘
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It came on the final play of the first half in Champaign, Ill., last Oct. 3. It started with 13 seconds left on the clock, the play after Penn State defensive end Jack Crawford sacked Illinois quarterback Juice Williams for a 15-yard loss and a penalty for intentional grounding.
The Illini were down 7-3 as Williams heaved a desperation throw from Penn State’s 43-yard line.
The freshman, playing his fifth game at Penn State and his first on the road, came into the Nittany Lion secondary as an extra back. He settled in near the Penn State goal line. Williams threw. The freshman intercepted it. At the 2.
Seventy yards, a good 15 seconds and a lot of fun followed.
He weaved, bobbed, cut, sliced and sprinted as the clock ran down to :00. And he kept on running. Nearly three-quarters of the field later the half ended, and the freshman’s career, for all intents and purposes, had begun.
‘Who is that guy?’ 62,870 people inside Memorial Stadium wanted to know. ‘And how fast is he?’
Stephon Morris.
And, as the man himself said last month, ‘4.27…baby.’
That ranks Morris among the fastest Nittany Lions on the 2010 roster, right after wide receiver Devon Smith, a reported 4.24, and ahead of wide receiver Curtis Drake, at 4.36. Like Morris, the two other speedsters will be sophomores in the fall.
Even though he is all of 5-foot-8 (after standing next to him, I know he’s not any taller), Morris weighs a solid 182 pounds. Most of all, tough — and with apologies to ZZ Top — Morris has legs, and he knows how to use them.
Functioning mainly as a nickel back in 2009, Morris saw a steady increase in playing time as the season went on. He ranks as the Lions’ seventh-best returning tackler, with 30 stops — 24 of them solo. He started the final game of the regular season at left cornerback, in place of an injured A.J. Wallace. As such, he was the only Penn State true freshman to garner a start in 2009.
He expects even more in 2010, not just more of the same.
‘I’m going in with a chip on my shoulder,’ Morris said in mid-March. ‘My goal right now is to not have a sophomore jinx.’
There’s not quite a logjam in the Penn State secondary, but three of the four regular starters from last season are back. Redshirt senior Drew Astorino (5-10 194), sitting out spring drills due to shoulder surgery right after the Capital One Bowl, is back at safety, having started all but one game last season and three games in 2008. He’s Penn State’s top returning tackler, with 62 tackles, and also had an interception and recovered two fumbles.
‘Astorino is banged up. We’ll keep him out,’ said coach Joe Paterno. ‘…He won’t do anything in the spring.’
Junior D’Anton Lynn, on the other hand, is doing almost everything. Lynn, who started every game at right cornerback and made 35 tackles last season, is also getting a look at safety in the spring.
‘Lynn is a good defensive back,’ Paterno said. ‘Whether he’s going to play safety or corner, I don’t know yet…. D’Anton is a guy with a lot of athletic ability, and he can probably play corner or he can play safety. But right now we’re just trying to get a feel for the football team and where he would fit in.’
At hero, redshirt junior Nick Sukay (6-1, 213) is firmly entrenched after starting all 13 games in 2009. He’s the No. 2 returning tackler, after Astorino, and had two interceptions and 11 pass breakups last season.
With a host of experienced and promising players at wide receiver, Paterno is giving redshirt senior Chaz Powell a look in the secondary. Powell (6-1, 197) had 28 catches in 2009, fourth-best on the team, with three touchdowns. With the left corner spot vacated with the departure of Wallace and backup Knowledge Timmons, Powell has a shot at some primary time in the secondary.
‘Obviously Powell is a good athlete,’ Paterno said. ‘He can play both sides. He can play offense and he can play defense. We’re going to take a look at him on defense.’
So where does all of this leave Morris?
‘I’ll do anything they want me to do,’ said Morris, who also was a gunner on the punt team. ‘I’ll help out with nickel or being a starting corner. I just want to do my part.’
Morris came to Penn State from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Md., where Derrick Williams went to school. His senior year of high school, Morris recorded four interceptions, so his pick against Illinois was not out of character.
Morris lacks some of Williams’ size, but not his heart, team spirit or — as he showed in his first of many Big Ten Conference games last season — his speed.
‘Anything the coaches want me to do,’ Morris said, ‘I’ll do it.’
And you can sense he means it. That’s not fast talking. It’s simply a talker who is fast.
