QB savors 6-0 start, 6-TD feat
Excuse Adam Morse if he was in no hurry to leave the playing field last Saturday at Carpenter-Haygood Stadium in Arkadelphia.
Morse lingered — talking with family and friends, soaking up the good vibes as is the custom in NCAA Division II football – after passing for six touchdowns in Henderson State’s 59-24 victory over East Central Oklahoma.
Morse was in no hurry to leave because it has taken him a long time to get where he is now.
“It’s a blast,” said Morse, who is in his sixth season of college football but in his first as a full-time starting quarterback. “It’s crazy. It doesn’t seem like it’s been 6 years. I still remember vividly my last snap in high school. … It feels amazing, and I’ve got a great group of guys to work with.”
Morse, 24, leads the Great American Conference in touchdown passes (20) and pass efficiency and is second in yards passing (1,726) for a Reddies team that is ranked No. 9 in the American Football Coaches Association Top 25 and sits atop the GAC standings at 6-0.
Henderson State’s position will be challenged on Saturday when 20thranked Harding (5-1) and its time-consuming Flexbone offense comes to town for a 2 p.m. kickoff.
Morse was at Henderson but did not play the last time the teams met — a 14-13 victory by Harding in 2019 in Searcy — but he knows all about the Bisons.
“They’re a toughnosed team,” Morse said of Harding, which leads Division II in rushing yards (350.7 ypg). “They’ll run the clock down. Time of possession is how they play the game. They try to keep the other team’s offense off the field.”
What does that mean for Morse?
“He’s going to have to do the same thing he’s done,” Henderson State Coach Scott Maxfield said. “Against them, every possession is critical. We’ve got to make some first downs to at least keep field position because we know we’re going to have a limited amount of plays. We’ve got to try to make the most of every time we touch it.”
Maxfield said Morse’s ability to shrug off mistakes and persevere has been a key to his success, epitomized by his performance in a 56-49 victory over Southern Arkansas three weeks ago.
Morse had thrown four interceptions and his team trailed 28-7 midway in the second quarter when the Reddies started to roll.
“The way I see it, interceptions are just incompletions, long incompletions,” said Morse, who has thrown 12 touchdown passes with no interceptions since the second quarter of SAU. “Interceptions to me, I try not to think about it. It’s always next play mentality. You’ve got to keep your head up. It was just a bad half.”
Maxfield said not every quarterback could have bounced back from adversity the way Morse did against SAU.
“He’s a guy that really doesn’t panic,” Maxfield said. “He’s very mature. He’s an older guy. There’s been a lot of quarterbacks, if they start out like that against SAU, it probably would not have been good.”
Senior wide receiver L’liott Curry has caught 9 of Morse’s 20 touchdown passes.
“Every game he’s improved,” Curry said. “I’m really proud of him. I’m glad he’s stepped up, and I’m glad he’s my quarterback.”