Auburn football: Minnesota quarterback takes a shot at the SEC
Minnesota Golden Gophers QB Tanner Morgan is holding nothing back with his jab at the SEC.
Auburn fans should be very aware of Tanner Morgan. After all, the Minnesota signal-caller carved the Tigers’ defense up for 278 yards and two touchdowns.
Unfortunately for Morgan, the Big Ten conference has elected to not play college football this fall and will attempt to play a season in the spring. As a result, the redshirt junior likely won’t play football in 2020.
However, while that may be disappointing for Morgan and Minnesota fans, the QB recently maintained his opinion that the Big Ten made the right call postponing fall football and at the same time, took a possible jab the SEC and other conferences who are still scheduled to play football this fall.
Minnesota QB Tanner Morgan on the Big Ten: "I commend them for being the conference that actually put player health and safety first, like they said all along."
— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) August 17, 2020
Morgan's sad he can't play, but praises P.J. Fleck, Kevin Warren, Mark Coyle and school president Joan Gabel by name.
As of now, the Big Ten and the Pac-12 are the only Power 5 conferences to postpone the 2020 college football season while the SEC, Big 12 and ACC are still planning on playing. Several other non-Power 5 and non-FCS conferences have also canceled football and other fall sports.
As for Morgan, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound quarterback took a big leap into stardom last season for the Golden Gophers. In his first season as the team’s full-time starter, Morgan completed 66 percent of his passes for 3,253 yards, 30 touchdowns and seven interceptions.
Coming out of high school, Morgan was a three-star prospect from Union, Kentucky and was rated as the No. 1185 player in the class of 2017 and No. 5 player in the state of Kentucky per 247Sports’ Composite Rankings.
Despite being a top player in an SEC state, Morgan failed to receive an offer from an SEC school with Minnesota, Louisville and Wake Forest being his only Power 5 offers.
Morgan was a big part of Minnesota’s breakout 2019 season and helped lead them to an 11-2 record — the program’s most wins in over a century (1904.)
As Auburn fans know, the Golden Gophers ended their big season with a 31-24 Outback Bowl victory over the Tigers. With the return of Morgan and star receiver Rashod Bateman, the Golden Gophers were expected to have another successful season in 2020.