Finally, ASU football’s wide receiving corps is fully intact.
Junior wide receiver Joe Morris, a Pierce College transfer, started practicing fully with the ASU football team on Wednesday after dealing with a nagging foot injury for most of fall camp.
“It was an injury ... right around junior college,” Morris said. “I played good with it, felt good with it; it’s just something that I’d rather be taken care of now rather than later.”
The missed practice time because of the injury has held Morris back. Wide receivers coach DelVaughn Alexander said Morris still struggles with some of the team’s concepts and adjustments but that his improvement in the past couple of days is noticeable.
“He’s coming along well, really well,” Alexander said. “You can’t make up for lost time, but you can see that he’s got the mental capacity to really understand what we want him to do.”
Morris is now competing for the No. 5 wide receiver slot, the final starting wideout spot, but he does have a place on almost every special team.
It could be a couple of weeks before we see Morris in game action as a receiver, but Morris is hoping to be ready sooner than that by doing things like extra sprints after practice.
“I’m working to (start) week one,” Morris said. “Every rep that I get I’m going to take advantage of. I can only control what I can control. Right now, that’s my effort, so that’s why I’m giving extra.”
Practice Notes
- Coach Todd Graham said he was happy with the team’s depth at defensive line and said that junior defensive tackle Marcus Hardison is coming off two of his best days of practice.- Graham said senior linebacker Chris Young is close to earning one of the honorary PT42 camouflaged practice jerseys. The jerseys are awarded to defensive players who stand out as exceptional leaders both on and off the field. So far, only senior safety Alden Darby and redshirt senior cornerback Osahon Irabor have worn the jerseys this fall.
Reach the reporter at ejsmith7@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @ericsmith_sp
