Former Carrollton (Ga.) High head coach Sean Calhoun can remember the first time he saw four-star NC State quarterback commit MJ Morris. It came when Morris was in the seventh grade.

A friend of Morris happened to be on Calhoun’s Carrollton team, and through that Calhoun met Morris and his family. During that interaction, coach and quarterback decided to toss the football around.

The first pass Morris fired away left a lasting impression.

“When kids are not in high school they throw a smaller ball,” Calhoun pointed out. “He throws one about 15 yards away, and if I had not caught it, it would have broken my nose.

“I caught it and looked at the ball, and he’s throwing a high school ball. I was like, ‘Wow.’ I say all that to say I knew, literally, the first pass that he ever threw to me that I knew that we had something athletically.”

Whether or not Morris had the intangibles to be a quarterback was to be determined, but it did not take long for Calhoun to get his answer. Morris practiced with Carrollton in the spring of his eighth grade year.

“You could just tell he belonged,” Calhoun remembered.