Player Spotlight: Christian Morgan

After highlighting an offensive player (Josh Fleeks) a couple of weeks ago, it’s now time to take a closer look at one Baylor’s most intriguing players on defense. Going into his senior year, Christian Morgan will look to build on his strong junior season.

Although the 2020 season was his first year as a full-time starter, Morgan has made his presence known since arriving on campus. In his first three years he has intercepted passes, forced fumbles, made tackles behind the line of scrimmage, recorded a sack, and has even blocked a punt. That is exactly the type of versatility that you want in the back end of your defense. In 2020, he more than tripled his tackles from his sophomore season, going from just 8 in 2019 to 39 last year, and led the team in interceptions with 3.

Morgan is the next in line of a nice stretch of hard-hitting safeties that Baylor has produced over the last fifteen years or so. Guys like Jordan Lake, Sam Holl, Taion Sells, and Chris Miller, just to name a few, all had the capability to stop offensive players in their tracks—something Christian Morgan has put on display throughout his career as well. However, because that takes aggression one criticism is that when you play like a missle you can sometimes run yourself out of position. This is usually evident by being sucked in to the run on a play-action pass or taking the wrong angle against a ball carrier. Nobody is perfect and there were times when that seemed to happen to Morgan last year.

But re-watching the games from least season it is apparent that his presence brought more good than bad. Now, in his second year as full-time starter and being familiar with the defensive scheme, it’s time for him to put it all together. The secondary is going to have plenty of veterans and it will be a battle on who which player can stand out among the crowd.