BOSTON -- For being a record leader and a soon-to-be Ivy league champ, Harvard wide receiver Carl Morris isn't exactly what you would expect him to be -- a man of experience.
Although it didn't show in his nine-reception, 155-yard, two-touchdown performance against Penn on Saturday, Morris is still a relative newcomer to the game of football.
Once an adamant soccer player, the economics major decided his junior year of high school to try out for the football team for something different.
"I got tired of soccer, I thought I'd try something new," Morris said.
The decision was obviously a good one.
"I'm still learning," Morris said. "I take a lot of time watching films and other games."
And the Crimson's star wide receiver is also new to the idea of winning.
After a press conference held following Saturday's game, Morris signed autographs for two adoring young fans with wide-eyed enthusiasm. And during the aforementioned press conference, Morris held a small video camera.
"I just want to go out and make sure we remember this for years," he said in reference to the camera. "The crowd today, I've never seen anything like that. I just want to keep a little piece of that."
Off the field, this may all seem a little new to Morris, but on the field and in the locker room, that's a very different story.
At halftime of Saturday's game, the Quakers were confident with their 14-7 lead.
But just down the hall, in the home team's locker room, Morris was extremely displeased. And the junior wide receiver made that displeasure very clear in the third quarter.
Morris single-handedly changed the tempo of the game with a series of spectacular catches, and, in return, came away with two touchdowns in the span of five minutes.
With 11:23 left in the third quarter, Harvard's Neil Rose drilled a pass down the middle to Morris. Morris cut inside, dodging Penn defender Rudy Brown and scampered into the end zone to tie the game at 14.
Only five minutes later, Rose and Morris connected again.
Rose sent a lobbing, 62-yard pass down the right sideline. In the air, the pass looked well beyond reach, but Morris kept running -- and he caught up with it.
Morris grabbed the pass and cut left, tossed his cover, Stephen Faulk, and scored his second touchdown of the day.
"He turned on the afterburners and juked the last defender [Faulk]," Rose said. "That play right there epitomizes his ability. He's a great receiver."
Morris ended the day as Harvard's all-time reception leader and single-season touchdown record holder.
And he's not done yet. Morris still has one year left in Cambridge.
When asked about his intentions for next season, the 6-foot-3, 200-pounder made it abundantly clear that it will be spent at Harvard. The NFL draft may be an option, but only in the future.
For now, Morris is content with the Ivy League, and ecstatic at the prospect of wearing a championship ring.
"This team is like a family, we're like brothers," he said. "I'll remember this championship, but more so the whole team in general."
