High up in the top row of Virginia’s Scott Stadium during home games is a couple in their fifties, cheering on the Cavaliers. They don’t wear anything to signal they’re the parents of a player, and at this point in the season, they’re even harder to find, because Virginia is one of college football’s best stories right now — a team picked to finish 14th in the 17-team ACC is 6-1 and No. 16 in the nation.
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But if you listen closely, you’ll hear the father. He’s the one who sounds like he’s announcing the game.
“He’ll be like, ‘OK, Chandler, it’s a 2-high (safeties)…’ Or, ‘It’s a single-high. Such and such throw is gonna be there!” said Paula Morris. Paula conceded she doesn’t much like the way her husband, Chad, talks through every offensive play the Cavaliers have, because it makes her even more nervous than she already is.
After all, her son is leading the charge.
“My wife hardly wants to sit by me,” Chad Morris said. “I’m literally narrating the game the whole time. She just stays away.”
“On the flip side, the good thing about having (Chad) besides me,” Paula said, “when something doesn’t go right, I will look at him and go, ‘OK, what should he have done?’ He’ll talk it through.”
This fall, almost everything has gone right for Chandler Morris, Virginia’s 24-year-old quarterback, and his team. The Cavaliers lead the ACC in scoring, averaging 40 points per game; in 2024, they were second-to-last at 22.7 PPG.
This is the most Chad has ever gotten to watch his son play football. And for Chad and Paula, it’s the first time in 32 years of marriage Chad hasn’t coached football at some level.
About a year ago, Chad was coaching wide receivers and working
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