AUBURN, Alabama – Auburn has targeted Chad Morris to fill its offensive coordinator position, sources tell Auburn Undercover.

The former Arkansas head coach is the leading candidate to replace Kenny Dillingham, who left Auburn for the same position at Florida State on Monday.

Auburn is expected to hire Dillingham's successor this week, sources tell Auburn Undercover.

Should the new coordinator be Morris, it could be a grand-slam hire for Auburn coach Gus Malzahn. The two have been close friends since their days coaching high school football (Morris in Texas and Malzahn in Arkansas). Morris adopted and adapted Malzahn's offense in the early 2000s during his high school career after the two met for a week in January 2004 at Springdale High in Arkansas.

Morris was fired at Arkansas in the middle of his second season as head coach in November. He was 4-18 overall with the Hogs.

Morris is very familiar with Auburn's offensive staff members and the feeling among insiders is a transition with Morris on staff would be seamless before the Outback Bowl. Auburn is scheduled to begin practices next week for the bowl game. The Tigers face No. 18 Minnesota (10-2) on New Year's Day in Tampa.

The first week of bowl practices are usually set aside to develop younger players, which will provide Auburn's new offensive coordinator extra time to work with players, particularly the quarterbacks. If Morris is hired, he is expected to coach quarterbacks.

Morris was previously the head coach at SMU and the offensive coordinator at Clemson, where he was the lead recruiter for quarterback Deshaun Watson. Watson was a two-time nominee for the Heisman Trophy. Clemson was 42-11 during his four-year tenure (2011-14) as the Tigers' offensive coordinator. He tied Malzahn as the highest-paid assistant coach in college football with a salary of $1.3 million.

Morris' recruiting responsibilities while at Clemson included Georgia and Florida, the two primary recruiting territories for Auburn.

Morris was on Auburn's campus with his son, Chandler, during the Iron Bowl on Nov. 30. Chandler Morris is a 4-star quarterback prospect in the class of 2020.

Morris, then the head coach at Stephenville (Texas) High, traveled to Arkansas several times in an effort to meet Malzahn, and persistence finally paid off in January 2004 when Malzahn agreed to share notes for almost an entire week at Malzahn's football office in Springdale.

Morris credits Malzahn with his turnaround in the shadow of Texas legend Art Briles, who led Stephenville to state championships before Morris took over in 2003 and missed the playoffs. With Malzahn's help, Morris went 43-6 over the next four seasons at Stephenville, landed a job at Lake Travis High and won back-to-back state titles with perfect 16-0 records. Malzahn coached Springdale to a No. 2 national ranking and won a state title in 2005.

"I always knew he had something special about him," Malzahn said in 2018. "He's a great person. He's one of the good guys in our business. But he's one of the best coaches I've ever been around."

Interestingly, their career paths have been nearly parallel since 2004. Malzahn's leap into college football occurred a few years before Morris, but he followed in Malzahn's footsteps to become the offensive coordinator at Tulsa in 2010. He later landed his own gig at Clemson as Malzahn coached Auburn's offense. They faced off as coordinators in 2011, with Clemson snapping Auburn's 17-game winning streak.

"You look at Clemson now and look back and when everything changed, it's when they hired Chad Morris," Malzahn said in 2018. "He got the offense going, recruited Deshaun Watson, and look at him now. He went to SMU, and it was low, low, low. He got them out of it ..."

Keith Niebuhr contributed to this report.

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