How Notre Dame CB Benjamin Morrison still has room to grow
As great of a revelation as Benjamin Morrison was in his freshman season, he could have been better. Everyone at every position on every team in the country can always be better.
Morrison had Notre Dame’s top Pro Football Focus coverage grade at 82.2, but that’s a mark that only checked in at No. 32 nationally among FBS cornerbacks. Illinois’ Devon Witherspoon, the Big Ten’s defensive back of the year and the No. 5 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, led the country among corners with a PFF coverage grade of 92.5. Only seven corners eclipsed 90-plus.
Morrison had 6 interceptions, but they came in three games. And all three games came in November or later. Still, 6 picks are 6 picks no matter how they’re sliced. Only two players in the nation, Buffalo’s Marcus Fuqua and Middle Tennessee State’s Decorian Patterson, had more. They both had 7 apiece. Morrison was included in a cluster of eight players — Utah’s Clark Phillips III, Miami’s Kamren Kinchens, Illinois’ Sydney Brown, Oklahoma State’s Jason Taylor II, Marshall’s Micah Abraham and South Alabama’s Yam Banks — who had half a dozen.
The next step for Morrison is consistency.
Before notching the first two picks of his career in an emphatic 35-14 victory over then-No. 4 Clemson Nov. 5, Morrison did not have an overall game grade of higher than 62.8 per PFF. That was in the season opener at Ohio State.
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Morrison finished the season as Notre Dame’s highest-graded player who was on the field for at least 10 defensive snaps, but he turned in a season-long overall grade of just 77.2. That says more about the Notre Dame defense than it does about Morrison. His yearlong grade slotted him in a tie for 119th among cornerbacks nationally.
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Morrison isn’t putting himself on a pedestal for having the most single-season interceptions for any Notre Dame player since Manti Te’o had 7 in 2012. He understands that he’s still a sophomore who has much to prove despite a plethora of national accolades coming his way in the form of Freshman All-America honors from 2022 and preseason All-America accolades for 2023.
“Never be satisfied,” Morrison said. “There is always more you can do. There is always more that I want to do. I just feel as if last year was scratching the surface for me. There are things that still don’t know what to do or how to do it. With this game, I’m just trying to learn more and more as I can.
“It’s cool because in many eyes it’s as if I did a lot, but I feel like there is still a lot I can do.”
Notre Dame’s top PFF coverage grades in 2022
Minimum 100 coverage snaps
- Benjamin Morrison, 82.2
- Clarence Lewis, 76.3
- Marist Liufau, 75.9
- JD Bertrand, 73.0
- Cam Hart, 63.2
