Vikings Waive Former Gophers QB from Practice Squad
The Minnesota Vikings were without backup QB Nick Mullens for Week 5 against the Kansas City Chiefs, who missed the game with a back injury.
As a result, the Vikings needed an emergency QB3 for the game, so they signed former Gophers QB Tanner Morgan, who spent his collegiate years at Minnesota.
However, as of Tuesday afternoon, it appears that the hometown QB’s time with the Vikings has come to an end as Minnesota waived him.
Vikings Waive Former Gophers QB
The Vikings tweeted the news on Tuesday, “The #Vikings have released QB Tanner Morgan from the practice squad.”
Morgan spent five years with the Minnesota Gophers throughout his collegiate career from 2018-2022 and helped lead them to four bowl game appearances.
His collegiate career at Minnesota got off to a very promising start, particularly during his sophomore season of 2019 where he completed 66% of his passes for 3253 yards, 30 TDs, and 7 INTs. His passing yards and passing TDs each ranked second in the Big Ten that year.
As a result of this strong play along with a defense that allowed 22.5 points per game, the Gophers went 11-2 and earned an Outback Bowl victory over Auburn. Their two losses came against Iowa and Wisconsin, though, so they did not represent the Big Ten-West in the conference title game.
Following that season, though, things progressively went downhill for Morgan and the Gophers. Minnesota finished the 2020 season with a 3-4 record and most recently have gone 9-4 in each of the 2021 and 2022 seasons with Guaranteed Rate Bowl and Pinstripe Bowl victories.
In 2022, he played just nine games due to a hit taken in the first half of the Gophers game against Nebraska, and he completed 66.9% of his passes for 1382 yards, 9 TDs, and 5 INTs.
Morgan finished his Gophers career with 9469 passing yards, 65 TDs, and 32 INTs. He finished his collegiate career second in program history for both passing yards and passing TDs behind only Adam Weber.
With this move, it appears that Mullens may have recovered from his back injury and could be back in uniform on Sunday when the Vikings take on the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field. This will also put Jaren Hall back in his usual spot as the emergency QB3.
NOTE: This article originally appeared on our flag-ship site, VikingsTerritory.com.
Josh Frey is a Class of 2020 graduate of The College of Idaho and managing editor of PurplePTSD.com. When he’s not writing about the NFL, Josh enjoys running, gaming, or rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers and Bucks. Check out his Twitter account: @Freyed_Chicken.