Chad Morris’ Intensity and Red Bull Already Have Clemson’s Offense Changing

Clemson’s new offensive coordinator, Chad Morris, and his famous Red Bull cans are back, and even though his current players were much younger when he ran the offense in his first tenure, they figured out his style quickly.

Christopher Vizzina recalled the first time he met Morris in his office. He had scattered cans all over his table when introducing himself. Another quarterback, Chris Denson, left the facility one day at 9:30 p.m., and Morris continued to watch film with a Red Bull in his hand.

He was the first one there, but Denson thinks that he had a permanent stay inside the Allen N. Reaves Football Complex when he first got the job back in January.

“Also, when he first got here, I promise, he didn’t go home,” Denson said on Monday evening. “Like, he was here all day, all night getting ready for us, and I feel like that’s what we want to be behind: a guy who’s committed to this offense and wants us to take us back to the top.”

Nearly every player has a moment that gives them a realization that there’s a new leader within the offense. Just ask center Harris Sewell, who heard something from Morris that fired him up right away to begin a team meeting.

“He came to the team meeting and he said he came here for two things,” Sewell said. “He came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and he’s all out of bubble gum.”

Morris’s infectious energy has brought tremendous speed to the Clemson offense in just two months on the job. On the first day of spring practices, Denson said that his energy “woke everybody up” on the offense.

That energy has brought a new-found speed to the line, and the players on the offensive line have seen the changes from last year’s offense to this one already.

“We’re playing with a lot of speed,” Sewell said. “We’re playing fast, and I’m kind of the leader of that because I touch the ball first. So, that’s kind of been the main difference, is playing with a bunch of speed.”

“It’s just learning how fast-paced you have to be for certain types of periods in his offense. That was my ‘Welcome to Coach moment,’” sophomore Brayden Jacobs added. “Like, I came off the sidelines and I was like ‘Woah, like that was definitely different.’”

His new offense is seeing new opportunities around the quarterbacks, which they touched on while speaking to the media to begin the week.

Vizzina said that it’s getting the players around him open, and the newfound opportunities are opening himself up as the potential next starting quarterback for the Tigers.

“I like where we’re putting ourselves in the position to score and where we’re putting our playmakers,” he said. “That’s been really cool to see the creative ways we can get our playmakers out in space.”

That hasn’t been without some tough coaching, though. Morris has said before that “nothing slides” on this offense when it comes to mistakes, and the players elaborated on it. Mental mistakes lead to punishments like running, then doing the play over again until it’s perfected.

“He’s just like, that’s the way he wants his offense to be run,” Jacobs said, “and that’s what he’s going to force.”

But it’s tough love, as well. Morris was intentional about getting to know everybody on the team right away, showing how caring he was about knowing his players’ strengths and weaknesses. As Clemson goes into more offensive installations over the next several months, the Tigers will continue to try to perfect their new offensive coordinator’s recipe, but tempo will be the focus going into the summer.

Now, the offensive leaders are trying to give that love back.

“Because he cared to get to know all of us so soon, I don’t think anyone minds it,” Vizzina said. “I mean, you want to do it for him because you care about who he is and what he’s about. So, it’s like, I just want to go out there and do my best because of him.”