AUBURN, Alabama — Auburn and Chad Morris have worked out a deal for the former Arkansas head coach to become offensive coordinator for the Tigers.

The former Arkansas head coach will replace Kenny Dillingham, who left Auburn for the offensive coordinator position at Florida State on Monday. Morris will also coach quarterbacks at Auburn.

Morris and Auburn coach Gus Malzahn 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 2004 after the two met and shared ideas for nearly a week at Springdale High in Arkansas.

“I’m very grateful for the opportunity to join coach Malzahn’s staff at Auburn," Morris said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. "I’ve known Gus since the early 2000s and consider him a dear friend and someone that helped me get into the profession at the college level. I’ve admired the success he’s had at each of his stops and look forward to adding to the success that he, his staff and the players have built. We are excited about joining the Auburn family.”

Malzahn quickly targeted Morris as Dillingham's replacement Monday, and the two sides immediately began working on a deal.

Their careers nearly paralleled each other since their first meeting in 2004, with both winning state championships and later leading championship-level offenses on the college level. 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.

“I’m super excited to have Chad Morris join our staff at Auburn," Malzahn said in a statement. "He’s a tremendous offensive mind who has had success with several top-ranked offenses during his time in the college ranks. I’ve known Chad for almost 20 years and he is a tireless worker and a perfectionist. He is a great addition to our program and I look forward to him helping Auburn win championships!”

Morris is very familiar with Auburn's offensive staff members and the feeling among insiders is a transition with Morris on staff should be seamless before the Outback Bowl. Auburn is scheduled to begin practices next week for the bowl game. The Tigers (9-3) 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 Morris additional time to work with players, particularly the 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.

Clemson set 127 offensive records (89 individual/38 team) and posted the top three scoring seasons in school history, as well as four of the top five passing seasons at Clemson during Morris' four-year career in the ACC.

The Clemson offense in its second season under Morris with ACC Player of the Year Tajh Boyd at quarterback set school records for total yards per game (512.7) and points per game (41.0), ranking sixth in the nation in scoring and ninth in the nation in total offense. The 2013 squad backed up those numbers with 508.5 yards and 40.2 points per game, both top 10 nationally.

Morris’ record-setting offense in 2012 and 2013 marked the first time in ACC history that an active member of the conference had averaged more than 40 points per game in back-to-back seasons. Clemson was also one of just two FBS schools with a 3,000-yard passer, 1,000-yard rusher and 1,000-yard receiver every year from 2011-13.

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, and is considering Auburn, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech and others. He was previously committed to Arkansas before his father was fired in November.

Chad Morris, then the head coach at Stephenville (Texas) High, traveled to Arkansas several times in an effort to meet Malzahn in late 2003, 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’m going to say this: he’s also given me advice," Malzahn said in July. "I know we talked about when he came to see me in Springdale, and showed him the offense, but there’s a lot of things he’s also showed me. We’re kind of from that same family offensively. We share ideas all the time. He’s given me some great advice."

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, where Malzahn coached from 2007 through 2009. 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 with a victory against the reigning national champions.

"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 ..."

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