Ja'Maric Morris bounced around from stop to stop before landing at Virginia this spring. The South Carolina native began his collegiate career at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas, one of the top JUCO programs in the country. Morris was a standout with Hutchinson, recording five interceptions in the 2022 season, and parlayed that into a transfer to UCF. His time in Orlando didn’t quite work out from a football perspective, as he appeared in just one game at UCF in the 2023 season and again transferred, this time to Georgia State. With the Panthers, Morris was a standout and showed flashes of the player hat dominated at the JUCO level. Morris played in 10 games last fall, and recorded two interceptions, and finished with 11 tackles. After spring ball, Morris, a projected starter at Georgia State, went back in the portal and signed with UVa.

Morris comes to UVa as a graduate student with one year remaining. The 6-foot-3 safety had a connection to the Virginia staff that may have helped get this recruitment over the line, too. Morris’ father Kelvin was a teammate of Tony Elliott’s at Clemson from 2002-2004, and Elliott helped seal the deal on Morris’ recruitment to Virginia.

Virginia needed playable depth and competition in the secondary, and adding Morris helps UVa achieve that goal. Morris has played safety throughout his career, and is one of several bigger defensive backs added to the roster in the spring, at 6-foot-3, and it seems like the Hoos will look to be physical across the secondary. Morris has bounced around quite a bit, and perhaps at his final stop, Morris will be able to find a role and have his best season as an FBS player. Morris should, at a minimum, help UVa’s depth and has a decent amount of playing experience that should help him if he ends up playing quite a bit.

As we’ve said with all of UVa’s other defensive back additions, the secondary is wide open, and Morris will have as good a chance as anyone to earn a role. The safety group has quite a bit of experience already, with Antonio Clary back and Louisville transfer Devin Neal performing well in the spring. UVa has also added a few other safeties, including Morris, who will look to edge out the competition and get into the starting defense. If nothing else though, moving to Virginia allows Morris to take advantage of NIL opportunities and cash in now, if a pro future isn’t in the cards.

It’s hard to project where Morris will fit into the defense in the fall, but he is still a solid addition that ups the competition level. Because he didn’t start at the FBS level and then bounced from UCF to Georgia State, Morris doesn’t have quite the resume as some of UVa’s other transfers who have had more consistent careers at one or two places. For that reason, it’s a bit tougher to project whether Morris will be able to earn a starting job or not. But he has a good athletic profile and played quite well at Georgia State last year, so if nothing else he should be able to compete to play a lot in a new-look secondary. Morris is another player that should be able to make an impact on special teams if he doesn’t end up in a starting role on defense.