By Jerry Ratcliffe
With Virginia football coach Tony Elliott in the audience, his former quarterback Chandler Morris was denied a temporary injunction by a Charlottesville Circuit Court judge on Thursday.
Morris has been seeking a seventh year of eligibility, and had planned on returning to Virginia’s program had he won his case against the NCAA. Morris and his father, Chad, the offensive coordinator at Clemson, were both in court.
The ruling gives some clarity to UVA’s quarterback room, with Missouri transfer Beau Pribula and Pitt transfer Eli Holstein competing for the starting job this spring.
Morris, 25, had spent six seasons overall at Oklahoma (2020), TCU (2021-2023), North Texas (2024) and Virginia (2025). The year in question was 2022, when he won the starting quarterback job in fall camp, but was injured in the opening game and did not return to the team until late in the season when he was put into games for “mop-up duty.”
The quarterback argued that losing that year of eligibility impacted his mental health.
It probably didn’t help his case that ACC commissioner Jim Phillips filed an affidavit opposing another year of eligibility for Morris.
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