Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray will have a lot of options when his college football season ends. But right now, his focus is on Saturday’s game with Alabama.
Murray has signed a contract with the Oakland Athletics of MLB. Since then, he’s won the Heisman Trophy and if he enters, would potentially be a top prospect in the NFL Draft. He insists that no decisions have been made on those lines and that right now, his focus is on the Crimson Tide.
“Nothing has changed,” he said, per Alex Scarborough of ESPN. “I haven’t put any energy into worrying about it or anything like that. All I can do is go out and play on Saturday and let my play speak for itself.”
Murray also noted that “It’s never bad to have options.”
The options have certainly made for a lot of confusion about what Murray will end up doing.
His agent, Scott Boras, has stated that his client won’t play in the NFL (though a clause in his contract would allow it). Murray also believes that he’d be a good quarterback in the NFL if that were to be his route.
“Obviously it wasn’t in the air, but I’ve always felt I could play in the NFL,” he said, per Scarborough. “I’m a confident guy. There’s not a lot of short quarterbacks in the league, but I think there’s more guys paving the way for the transition of not really caring about how big you are, how tall you are. I’ve played this game my whole life and I’ve always felt I could do it.”
Additionally, despite what his agent has said, Murray has recently expressed a desire to play both baseball and football. We’ve seen that in the relatively recent past by both Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson. Brian Jordan did the same, though he left football upon getting called up to Major League Baseball from the minors.
That said, none of those players were quarterbacks. That makes Murray’s desire to play both sports even more challenging. It would also make the accomplishment even more impressive if he could somehow pull it off.
No matter what happens on Saturday and going forward in the NCAA Football playoff, Murray’s decisions will be very interesting to watch.