Wayne Morgan grew up playing football on dirt and rocks, with his Pop Warner football teammates at Betsy Head Park in Brooklyn. He was a quarterback.

Now a sophomore at Syracuse, a lot has changed. He plays on turf in the Carrier Dome, and reads quarterbacks from the secondary instead.
His toughness is the lone constant.

“I just like running through people,” Morgan said. “I don’t like stopping my feet. You know how people break down? I don’t like breaking down. I just like to go. When I see it, I just run through it.”

Morgan has been running through more people as of late. With cornerback Keon Lyn out for the season, Morgan has been thrust into a larger role. He said he played 39 snaps against North Carolina State — not including special teams — mostly in the slot.

But he also played out wide — like the 5-foot-10 defensive back did frequently against then-No. 3 Clemson when Brandon Reddish was sidelined with a lower-body injury.

Morgan has five total tackles in the last two games, including a big hit on a crossing Wolfpack wide receiver.

“That experiential knowledge is invaluable with regards to the number of the snaps he gets,” SU head coach Scott Shafer said. “You’re starting to see those reactions come quicker with Wayne. When he sees it and believes it, he’s a good football player.”

His toughness, Erasmus Hall (N.Y.) High School coach Danny Landberg said, isn’t new. Landberg has known Morgan since he was a child, and remembers not only his grit as a Pop Warner player, but off the field, too.

When Morgan was about 13, Landberg remembers hearing a group of 20 kids going to jump him and a friend. But when he got there, the scene he witnessed was the opposite of what he expected.

“The 20 kids were running from him,” Landberg said. “Wayne was not to be messed with.”

That carried over to his time at Erasmus, where Morgan played quarterback and defensive back. Running the option out of the shotgun as a sophomore, Morgan earned all-city honors.

Landberg said that while Morgan was a star quarterback — he threw for 763 yards and four touchdowns, and rushing for 600 yards and six touchdowns as a senior — he focused more on training as a defensive back.

He’d spend his extra time meticulously examining how routes manifest and the best way to approach his drops. Ranked the No. 11 safety in the nation by ESPN as a senior, Morgan chose SU instead of offers from Penn State and Maryland, among others, according to Scout.com.

“He’s got the most unbelievable toughness I’ve ever had out of anybody,” Landberg said. “He’s fearless on the field and he’s not afraid to be the guy out there making big plays.”

Now at Syracuse, Morgan said his experiences playing quarterback still factor into his play. Whether it be shedding a blocker with a juke move or reading the opposing quarterback’s eyes on an option play, the understanding is subconscious.

“I could sense what a quarterback is about to do, like if I see him reading I know who he’s keying off of a little bit,” Morgan said.

When Syracuse travels to Atlanta to take on Georgia Tech this weekend, Morgan will be faced with a triple-option offense. A system that he said, on film, he understands well.

But it’s the toughness that he picked up playing Pop Warner at Betsy Head Park that will help him execute against the Yellow Jackets, especially when he’s playing cornerback against bigger, taller receivers.

“It doesn’t really matter about the height,” Morgan said. “It’s all about toughness. Like if you know in your heart you aren’t going to let this guy beat you, it doesn’t really matter about your size.”

Published on October 16, 2013 at 12:18 am

Contact Stephen: [email protected] | @Stephen_Bailey1