Texas Tech offensive coordinator Eric Morris has been named the head coach at Incarnate Word, the school announced Saturday.
"Eric Morris has been a very successful student, football player and coach," AD Brian Wickstrom said in a statement. "Since UIW Athletics has moved to the highest level of Division I competition, I am excited to have a coach of Eric's caliber be the one to help turn our program into a nationally competitive program. I am excited for our student-athletes and our campus community to be a part of the next steps of UIW Athletics."
Incarnate Word is an FCS school in San Antonio with around 6,000 students. The school launched football in 2009 as a Division II program and moved to the FCS's Southland Conference in 2014. Morris will be the program's third head coach; the Cardinals went 1-10 in 2017 under Larry Kennan.
Morris, 32, spent the past five seasons as the offensive coordinator on Kliff Kingsbury's staff in Lubbock. A former Texas Tech wideout, Morris had three years of coaching experience before arriving at his alma mater. He served as a quality control assistant at Houston in 2010, as a graduate assistant on that same staff in 2011, and as inside receivers coach at Washington State in 2012.
Welcome to the family @TTUCoachMorris! 🏈 #SpreadTheWordpic.twitter.com/HPOzZ5HZ00
— UIW Football (@UIW_Football) December 31, 2017
"I'm excited about the vision and the leadership that Dr. Evans and Dr. Wickstrom have established for UIW athletics," Morris said. "They've been awesome throughout this process. To have what I see as a power-five president and a power-five athletic director to help generate the resources we need to get the program where it needs to go is exciting.
"San Antonio is a great place for my wife and I to raise our family. It's also a football-rich city with a lot of untapped resources and recruits. There's a bunch of new blood at UIW and the future is very bright. We're going to have wholesale change in a lot of ways. It's something I'm excited to be a part of."
A press conference will be held at a to-be-determined date.