The annual Harbaugh/Taggart bowl-a-thon and croquet tournament will be incrementally angrier this year after Michigan flipped FL SDE Mike Morris from a Seminoles commit. Since that'll take things from one million to one million and one it probably won't matter much. But still!

Morris is a 3.5* guy with some impressive offers, at least one of which was committable, obviously. Morris is the son of, uh, Mike Morris, who played at FSU in the late 80s and early 90s. May he be as productive as Michigan's other FSU legacy. To the rankings:

GURU RANKINGS

Rivals	ESPN	24/7	Composite
4*, 5.8 rating #25 WDE, #45 FL	4*, #275 overall #34 DE, #45 FL	3*, #462 overall #31 SDE, #56 FL	4*, #322 overall #22 SDE, #44 FL

Morris committed to FSU over two and a half years ago(!!!) as a rising sophomore after a 13-sack freshman year; at the time he was already 6'5", 230. Morris hasn't quite stayed on the same upwards track above or he'd be a five star. 24/7's first set of 2019 rankings had him #58 nationally; Morris was briefly inside the Rivals 250 at #219 but has slowly drifted out as the cycle goes along. He's fallen back to the pack as other guys catch up physically.

24/7 is relatively down on Morris, which is unfortunate since they seem to have the best and (by far) most comprehensive rankings these days. The gap isn't big, though. Rivals ranking Morris, a 6'5" guy who is already listed at 260, at WDE is an artifact of his extremely early commitment. It's more likely he slides down to three-tech than plays a meaningful amount of WDE in his career.

SCOUTING

Virtually none. Sometimes this happens with guys who are already off the board, especially when they've been injured. Morris was. A torn labrum prevented Morris from participating in his local UA camp and may be the reason for his slide on 247; as of April he was still a top 250 player to them. The drop since was unexplained. 24/7 actually has virtually no scouting on Morris, so best guess here is that they're going on this:

Part of his situation regarding his Florida State commitment revolves a potential position change. The Seminoles appear to want him to play offensive tackle and it doesn't seem that Morris is in on that. Noles247 analyst Josh Newberg recently opined that it could change things between player and school.

"We either see him making a move to offensive tackle or flipping to another school so that he can remain at defensive end," Newberg said. "Right now it’s hard to see him filling a need at the defensive end position for FSU."

"We want you at a different position" is often a brush-off move. In Morris's case he'd been publicly shaky for so long and was already trending away, so that may be more of an attempt to save face. But that's pretty much it as far as recent things that would justify a 200-spot move down. Morris doesn't appear to have done any camps at all, so information in February was the same as it was in June.

ESPN does have an underclass eval but it talks about a "lean, lengthy prospect" with "wiry strength" and is super dated. Rivals has the only current takes about what kind of player he is:

"...incredible size and power ...not particularly quick ... moves fluidly for a prospect of his size... high ceiling ... need[s] to get faster and tone up at Michigan."

Brandon Brown compared him to Chris Wormley and that seems about right. Morris has the frame to be a TE-punishing anchor end or slide down to three-tech and be reasonably disruptive.

He's a Don Brown favorite, per Steve Lorenz way back in the day:

- One 2019 prospect Michigan is expected to make a run at is Fort Myers (FL) four-star defensive end and Florida State commitment Mike Morris. We're told he's a player Don Brown is very high on.

And sure enough:

“It was amazing,” Morris told The Michigan Insider. “I talked with all the coaches, went over the weight training program, beat the Coach Brown in horse, tried on the uniform, and watched practice."

The 6-foot-5, 250-pound standout had many highlights during his time in Ann Arbor including playing a game of horse with defensive coordinator Don Brown.

“It was amazing, Morris said. “It’s a one of a kind experience. He has a nice jumper, but when I brought him out to that three point line, it was over haha. We talked about my position, school, their coaching staff, the entire organization and facilities.”

[After THE JUMP: the rest of this post]

OFFERS

In addition to his FSU commitment, Morris had offers from Miami, Tennessee, and Oklahoma that seemed to be committable given the various visit patterns. He also reported Clemson, Florida, and WVU offers.

HIGH SCHOOL

American Heritage in Boca Raton has big-time prospects on a near-annual basis. It recently sent TE Nick Eubanks to Michigan and was prominent a year later when Kai-Leon Herbert was a commit before he was a decommit.

STATS

I didn't find any other than the freshman year stuff. Sometimes that is an ominous sign.

FAKE 40 TIME

None as far as I can tell.

VIDEO

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

Morris comes in right after another batch of developmental SDE/three-tech prospects and will have to either wait his turn or fight through those guys. He's likely to redshirt, beef significantly, and then start contributing in year two or three. Carlo Kemp's career path to date is a likely one. If he's good, he'll play. You can never have enough DL.

OL could be a backup plan. If Morris does end up being 6'6" 300 Michigan will evaluate him there.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Morris was the 21st commit in the class and Giles Jackson made it 22 soon after. He's the sixth DL and probably the last unless a must-take prospect like Zach Harrison or George Karlaftis wants in. With Michigan's remaining scholarships they appear to be on the hunt for another OT or two,—please—an outside WR, and then whatever big-timers they can flag down before flier time in January.