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I was leaving the stadium after the Spring Game and there was an older gentleman in front of me wearing a Maalik Murphy jersey. As we got to the parking garage, there was a guy sitting outside with a towel over his head. We got a little closer and the young man picked up his head, broke into a big smile, got up and gave a big hug to the older guy still a bit ahead of me.
I couldn’t help but smile as I watched Murphy and his dad embrace each other. He had just come off a tremendous performance that cemented his status as Quinn Ewers backup and put him in line to start, if needed.
But that spring game performance (and the two starts he got this season), did something even more valuable for Maalik Murphy, it put very good play onto tape for other schools around the country to see what he could do.
Murphy has incredible talent and is a talented leader. He has a cannon for an arm and a smile that endears him to everyone around him (even middle aged guys who just happen to be walking about 20 yards behind his Dad).
This decision could not have been an easy one for Murphy. He loves being a Longhorn and he loves his teammates. But if I were Murphy’s Dad, I would have told him this is exactly what he needs to do.
Murphy’s talent can only be fully actualized if he finds a place where he can actually play. Whatever deficiencies he has in his game (and there aren’t a lot), can be fixed with game reps.
The truth is, Murphy doesn’t have near the experience that many other QB’s his age has. He didn’t become the starter at Junipero Serra High School in California until his junior year. Even then, it was a shortened season due to COVID. So he started basically a season and a half of games in high school and only got two more starts at Texas.
No matter where Murphy goes, he just needs to make sure he has a legitimate shot to be the starter. He also needs to make sure that he finds a coach who can develop his talent.
I know it's hard for many fans to accept that Murphy will not be with his teammates for the college football playoffs (it had to be even harder for Murphy). But really, I'm not sure he has time to wait. Coaches are hard at work right now trying to fill out their rosters and QB slots fill up quickly. Murphy needs to get on it now to find the right landing spot.
Call me crazy, but I think Murphy would be a good fit for Michigan State.
New Spartans head coach Jonathan Smith has a good track record of working with quarterbacks. He also runs a pro-style offense that would fit Murphy’s skills. Also, the quarterbacks already on Michigan State’s roster all portaled out with the coaching change so he would have a chance to immediately compete to be QB 1.
Nebraska may be a good fit as well since former Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord decided against going to Lincoln. Head coach Matt Rhule ran a pro-style offense at Temple and then a spread offense at Baylor. Murphy would be a fit with either.
No matter where Murphy ends up, I will be cheering for him as hard as I can. After all, it’s hard not to cheer for him when you see him flash that big arm and that big smile.
SEC SCHEDULE THOUGHTS:
The SEC released the full 2024 schedule during a two-hour long unveiling show Wednesday night. There are some good things and some not so good things in store for the Longhorns next year.
The Longhorns will host their first home SEC contest against a familiar foe. Jeff Lebby, OU’s offensive coordinator this year, takes over as head coach at Mississippi State and brings his Bulldogs to Austin for the SEC opener.
Mississippi State fared pretty well against Texas the last time they hired a former Texas foe to be their head coach. Jackie Sherrill defeated Texas 13-6 in 1991 and 28-10 the next season. The ’91 game sticks out in my memory for several reasons. First, Sherrill had a longhorn castrated in front of his team to get them pumped up. Second, Texas was coming off its “Shock the Nation” season and the loss in Starksville was an omen of bad things to come.
Time for a little revenge.
Immediately following the Mississippi State game will be a bye week followed by the Red River Rivalry.
The SEC did not do the Horns any favors with the placement of their two bye weeks. In an ideal world, the Horns would have their bye week AFTER playing OU in the Cotton Bowl. Instead, they get the bye week before OU and then have to immediately turn around and play Georgia at home. Talk about a tough turnaround.
The only tougher thing about the turnaround from OU to Georgia will be UGA fans trying to find a hotel room in Austin since it is being played the same weekend as the F1 race.
The Georgia game will also have a big impact on the college football playoff race. A win against the Bulldogs will be a big piece of Texas’ CFP resume.
As tough as the Georgia game will be, the Longhorns will basically have a two week recovery period with a trip to Nashville to take on Vanderbilt and then the Horns get a bye week.
Personally, I am very excited for the Florida/Texas game. My Dad went to Florida for his Doctorate. As a result, I graduated from high school in Gainesville, Florida and still have plenty of friends from there. But Billy Napier is no Steve Spurrier. The Gators are wounded and Napier could very well be fighting for his job by the time he makes the trip to Texas. In fact, I’m setting that week 11 game as the over/under week for Napier to be fired. He very well may leave Austin with a pink slip.
I am also incredibly excited for the renewal of the annual grudge match against Arkansas. I used to look forward to those games every year. It seemed to me, as a kid, that the Arkansas game always seemed to be scheduled for the week after OU. That was always a brutal two-game stretch in the Southwest Conference.
After Arkansas, Texas gets to host Kentucky coached by one of them Stoops boys. Mark Stoops has done a good job in the Bluegrass State. How good the Cats will be in 2024 will depend on how good their new quarterback, Brock Vandergriff.
Immediately after the Stoops matchup will be the return of the big one. Texas is headed to College Station to wrap up the season. This is going to be the Aggies Super Bowl. It is almost impossible to handicap what the Aggies will look like next year under new head coach Mike Elko because so many of the players on the current roster are in the transfer portal. But no matter who is on the roster that weekend, they are going to be flying high to take on Texas.
One important note about the A&M game is that even though it’s listed as a Saturday contest, the rivalry games that week could be moved to Thanksgiving day or Friday later. That will be settled later when the tv networks make their picks of which games to show. Of course, that means it could be a short week between the Kentucky game and the A&M game.
All in all, the 2024 season is going to be an exciting time to be a Longhorn fan. There will be a lot of good games.
BOWL GAME SEASON!
It’s that time of year again. The bowl season kicks off this Saturday with a full slate of games. Seven games in all including a primetime matchup between UCLA and Boise State in the LA Bowl and, we’ll call it the “Sonny Dykes Bowl” featuring Cal vs. Texas Tech.
Admit it, while you may know the game isn’t actually called the “Sonny Dykes Bowl,” probably 90 percent of you (or more) don’t actually know the name of that bowl game or even that Cal was playing Texas Tech this Saturday night. Amirite?
For the record, the Cal Bears are taking on the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl.
The painful truth is that bowl games just don’t generate much excitement for either the fans or the players.
Player opt-outs are among the reasons why bowl game ratings and attendance are down – and that’s a problem.
Bowl games were designed as a way to lure tourists to usually sunnier climes in order to watch a college football game. But fans have been slowly, but steadily, turning away from just about any game that is not a playoff game.
The same can be said for television ratings.
I spoke with Jon Lewis who tracks college football television ratings for Sports Media Watch.
“For the most part, what the playoff has done is (make) all the non playoff bowls just kind of seem like exhibitions,” Lewis said. “Obviously you have a lot of players who don't play in the games, understandably so, and it definitely has been reflected in the ratings.”
It’s not hard to understand the problems plaguing the games. For power five (soon to be power four) teams not making the college football playoffs, disappointment usually sets in. Players opt out as they either prepare for the NFL draft or hit the transfer portal. As a result, fans frequently choose to hold on to their money rather than spend it to travel to watch a team that is just a shell of the team that played throughout the season.
The better way is this … move the non-playoff bowl games to the start of the season.
“We already do kind of have both at the beginning of the season, they're not called bowls, but you know things like the Chick-fil-A kickoff game where you have big non-conference matchups,” Lewis said. “So you do already kind of have that but I think to do that with the bowls, you know, that would be odd.”
I can’t take credit for this odd idea. I heard it from David Ubben from The Athletic on the Until Saturday podcast.
At first, I thought it was crazy too but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
Opt-outs and the playoffs don’t just drain enthusiasm for the rest of the bowl games, they essentially change the games all together. Teams are forced to play with so many backups that it ends up looking more like a preview for the next season rather than a capstone for the season that just wrapped up.
For example, OU is rolling into this year’s Alamo Bowl with its starting quarterback preparing to move to Eugene, Oregon instead of studying the Arizona defense. Dillon Gabriel moving on was expected and planned for. Their left guard moving on came as a surprise.
Freshman left guard Cayden Green didn’t show up when the team started workouts ahead of the bowl game. Instead, they found him in the transfer portal.
It’s pretty dang hard to prepare for a bowl game when you don’t even know which players are going to show up for the game. That wouldn’t be a problem if you played the game at the start of the season.
Bowl games could be played in Week Zero and to “reward” the teams playing in them, you could give them extra practice time as well. That kind of reward would benefit the team for the entirety of the season, not just a springboard into winter conditioning. What coach wouldn’t love that?
Enthusiasm for Oklahoma versus Arizona in San Antonio may not be very high right now, but what would it be like next August? How many more fans would pour into the city to watch Jackson Arnold in his first starter as the unquestioned leader of the team?
You think Oklahoma State fans wouldn’t be buying up hotel rooms like crazy to take on Texas A&M in Houston? Absolutely they would! Heck, Eskimo Joe’s may even want to run a food truck down and park it outside NRG Stadium to accommodate the mass hordes of the bright orange wearing fans.
Television ratings may very well be higher in August. But Jon Lewis is not convinced. He points out that the lack of bowl games in December and January would leave a big void in ESPN’s programming schedule.
“The bowls are definitely losing value, losing relevance and losing audience,” Lewis said. “But if you're ESPN, you want more bowl games. If ESPN could get to 50 or 60 bowl games, just fill every single possible window that you can. It's still college football, it's still going to get to audiences that you're not going to get with college basketball this time of year. The bowls still do have a great deal of value.“
That’s fair, but the college football playoffs are already expanding from four to 12. It’s only a matter of time before it expands to 24. You’re looking at a month long tournament that would dazzle fans, fill stadiums and send ratings through the roof. The rest of the teams not in the playoffs can take the holidays off and get ready for the next season.
Of course, that’s not something Texas needs to worry about … at least not this year.
TWEETS OF INTEREST:
I wouldn’t bet on Texas just sliding into mediocrity after they move to the SEC next season.
###################################
The more I look into this year’s playoffs, the more convinced I am that Texas should actually be the favorite to win it all.
###################################
Poor Kirk Herbstreit is getting pounded by angry FSU fans.
###################################
The NCAA lost a court hearing where some players, who had already used their one-time transfer portal exemption, to transfer again without penalty.
Which means the transfer portal could see even more people jump into the mix.
###################################
Speaking of television ratings. This year’s Army/Navy game drew pretty good numbers. And, let’s face it, if you’re not into watching this game then you are, in fact, anti-American.
Let’s just hope next season’s game turns out a little better.
Go Navy! Beat Army!
###################################
Finally … good luck to the volleyball team as they get ready to defend their national championship.
YOU!
Now is your chance to sponsor the column. Our previous sponsor paid for more than three months of sponsorship fees in the first two weeks of signing up. That can be you! Contact @BlakeSkaggs if you want that kind of successful promotion for your business. Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity!
===========================================================================
I was leaving the stadium after the Spring Game and there was an older gentleman in front of me wearing a Maalik Murphy jersey. As we got to the parking garage, there was a guy sitting outside with a towel over his head. We got a little closer and the young man picked up his head, broke into a big smile, got up and gave a big hug to the older guy still a bit ahead of me.
I couldn’t help but smile as I watched Murphy and his dad embrace each other. He had just come off a tremendous performance that cemented his status as Quinn Ewers backup and put him in line to start, if needed.
But that spring game performance (and the two starts he got this season), did something even more valuable for Maalik Murphy, it put very good play onto tape for other schools around the country to see what he could do.
Murphy has incredible talent and is a talented leader. He has a cannon for an arm and a smile that endears him to everyone around him (even middle aged guys who just happen to be walking about 20 yards behind his Dad).
This decision could not have been an easy one for Murphy. He loves being a Longhorn and he loves his teammates. But if I were Murphy’s Dad, I would have told him this is exactly what he needs to do.
Murphy’s talent can only be fully actualized if he finds a place where he can actually play. Whatever deficiencies he has in his game (and there aren’t a lot), can be fixed with game reps.
The truth is, Murphy doesn’t have near the experience that many other QB’s his age has. He didn’t become the starter at Junipero Serra High School in California until his junior year. Even then, it was a shortened season due to COVID. So he started basically a season and a half of games in high school and only got two more starts at Texas.
No matter where Murphy goes, he just needs to make sure he has a legitimate shot to be the starter. He also needs to make sure that he finds a coach who can develop his talent.
I know it's hard for many fans to accept that Murphy will not be with his teammates for the college football playoffs (it had to be even harder for Murphy). But really, I'm not sure he has time to wait. Coaches are hard at work right now trying to fill out their rosters and QB slots fill up quickly. Murphy needs to get on it now to find the right landing spot.
Call me crazy, but I think Murphy would be a good fit for Michigan State.
New Spartans head coach Jonathan Smith has a good track record of working with quarterbacks. He also runs a pro-style offense that would fit Murphy’s skills. Also, the quarterbacks already on Michigan State’s roster all portaled out with the coaching change so he would have a chance to immediately compete to be QB 1.
Nebraska may be a good fit as well since former Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord decided against going to Lincoln. Head coach Matt Rhule ran a pro-style offense at Temple and then a spread offense at Baylor. Murphy would be a fit with either.
No matter where Murphy ends up, I will be cheering for him as hard as I can. After all, it’s hard not to cheer for him when you see him flash that big arm and that big smile.
SEC SCHEDULE THOUGHTS:
The SEC released the full 2024 schedule during a two-hour long unveiling show Wednesday night. There are some good things and some not so good things in store for the Longhorns next year.
The Longhorns will host their first home SEC contest against a familiar foe. Jeff Lebby, OU’s offensive coordinator this year, takes over as head coach at Mississippi State and brings his Bulldogs to Austin for the SEC opener.
Mississippi State fared pretty well against Texas the last time they hired a former Texas foe to be their head coach. Jackie Sherrill defeated Texas 13-6 in 1991 and 28-10 the next season. The ’91 game sticks out in my memory for several reasons. First, Sherrill had a longhorn castrated in front of his team to get them pumped up. Second, Texas was coming off its “Shock the Nation” season and the loss in Starksville was an omen of bad things to come.
Time for a little revenge.
Immediately following the Mississippi State game will be a bye week followed by the Red River Rivalry.
The SEC did not do the Horns any favors with the placement of their two bye weeks. In an ideal world, the Horns would have their bye week AFTER playing OU in the Cotton Bowl. Instead, they get the bye week before OU and then have to immediately turn around and play Georgia at home. Talk about a tough turnaround.
The only tougher thing about the turnaround from OU to Georgia will be UGA fans trying to find a hotel room in Austin since it is being played the same weekend as the F1 race.
The Georgia game will also have a big impact on the college football playoff race. A win against the Bulldogs will be a big piece of Texas’ CFP resume.
As tough as the Georgia game will be, the Longhorns will basically have a two week recovery period with a trip to Nashville to take on Vanderbilt and then the Horns get a bye week.
Personally, I am very excited for the Florida/Texas game. My Dad went to Florida for his Doctorate. As a result, I graduated from high school in Gainesville, Florida and still have plenty of friends from there. But Billy Napier is no Steve Spurrier. The Gators are wounded and Napier could very well be fighting for his job by the time he makes the trip to Texas. In fact, I’m setting that week 11 game as the over/under week for Napier to be fired. He very well may leave Austin with a pink slip.
I am also incredibly excited for the renewal of the annual grudge match against Arkansas. I used to look forward to those games every year. It seemed to me, as a kid, that the Arkansas game always seemed to be scheduled for the week after OU. That was always a brutal two-game stretch in the Southwest Conference.
After Arkansas, Texas gets to host Kentucky coached by one of them Stoops boys. Mark Stoops has done a good job in the Bluegrass State. How good the Cats will be in 2024 will depend on how good their new quarterback, Brock Vandergriff.
Immediately after the Stoops matchup will be the return of the big one. Texas is headed to College Station to wrap up the season. This is going to be the Aggies Super Bowl. It is almost impossible to handicap what the Aggies will look like next year under new head coach Mike Elko because so many of the players on the current roster are in the transfer portal. But no matter who is on the roster that weekend, they are going to be flying high to take on Texas.
One important note about the A&M game is that even though it’s listed as a Saturday contest, the rivalry games that week could be moved to Thanksgiving day or Friday later. That will be settled later when the tv networks make their picks of which games to show. Of course, that means it could be a short week between the Kentucky game and the A&M game.
All in all, the 2024 season is going to be an exciting time to be a Longhorn fan. There will be a lot of good games.
BOWL GAME SEASON!
It’s that time of year again. The bowl season kicks off this Saturday with a full slate of games. Seven games in all including a primetime matchup between UCLA and Boise State in the LA Bowl and, we’ll call it the “Sonny Dykes Bowl” featuring Cal vs. Texas Tech.
Admit it, while you may know the game isn’t actually called the “Sonny Dykes Bowl,” probably 90 percent of you (or more) don’t actually know the name of that bowl game or even that Cal was playing Texas Tech this Saturday night. Amirite?
For the record, the Cal Bears are taking on the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl.
The painful truth is that bowl games just don’t generate much excitement for either the fans or the players.
Player opt-outs are among the reasons why bowl game ratings and attendance are down – and that’s a problem.
Bowl games were designed as a way to lure tourists to usually sunnier climes in order to watch a college football game. But fans have been slowly, but steadily, turning away from just about any game that is not a playoff game.
The same can be said for television ratings.
I spoke with Jon Lewis who tracks college football television ratings for Sports Media Watch.
“For the most part, what the playoff has done is (make) all the non playoff bowls just kind of seem like exhibitions,” Lewis said. “Obviously you have a lot of players who don't play in the games, understandably so, and it definitely has been reflected in the ratings.”
It’s not hard to understand the problems plaguing the games. For power five (soon to be power four) teams not making the college football playoffs, disappointment usually sets in. Players opt out as they either prepare for the NFL draft or hit the transfer portal. As a result, fans frequently choose to hold on to their money rather than spend it to travel to watch a team that is just a shell of the team that played throughout the season.
The better way is this … move the non-playoff bowl games to the start of the season.
“We already do kind of have both at the beginning of the season, they're not called bowls, but you know things like the Chick-fil-A kickoff game where you have big non-conference matchups,” Lewis said. “So you do already kind of have that but I think to do that with the bowls, you know, that would be odd.”
I can’t take credit for this odd idea. I heard it from David Ubben from The Athletic on the Until Saturday podcast.
At first, I thought it was crazy too but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
Opt-outs and the playoffs don’t just drain enthusiasm for the rest of the bowl games, they essentially change the games all together. Teams are forced to play with so many backups that it ends up looking more like a preview for the next season rather than a capstone for the season that just wrapped up.
For example, OU is rolling into this year’s Alamo Bowl with its starting quarterback preparing to move to Eugene, Oregon instead of studying the Arizona defense. Dillon Gabriel moving on was expected and planned for. Their left guard moving on came as a surprise.
Freshman left guard Cayden Green didn’t show up when the team started workouts ahead of the bowl game. Instead, they found him in the transfer portal.
It’s pretty dang hard to prepare for a bowl game when you don’t even know which players are going to show up for the game. That wouldn’t be a problem if you played the game at the start of the season.
Bowl games could be played in Week Zero and to “reward” the teams playing in them, you could give them extra practice time as well. That kind of reward would benefit the team for the entirety of the season, not just a springboard into winter conditioning. What coach wouldn’t love that?
Enthusiasm for Oklahoma versus Arizona in San Antonio may not be very high right now, but what would it be like next August? How many more fans would pour into the city to watch Jackson Arnold in his first starter as the unquestioned leader of the team?
You think Oklahoma State fans wouldn’t be buying up hotel rooms like crazy to take on Texas A&M in Houston? Absolutely they would! Heck, Eskimo Joe’s may even want to run a food truck down and park it outside NRG Stadium to accommodate the mass hordes of the bright orange wearing fans.
Television ratings may very well be higher in August. But Jon Lewis is not convinced. He points out that the lack of bowl games in December and January would leave a big void in ESPN’s programming schedule.
“The bowls are definitely losing value, losing relevance and losing audience,” Lewis said. “But if you're ESPN, you want more bowl games. If ESPN could get to 50 or 60 bowl games, just fill every single possible window that you can. It's still college football, it's still going to get to audiences that you're not going to get with college basketball this time of year. The bowls still do have a great deal of value.“
That’s fair, but the college football playoffs are already expanding from four to 12. It’s only a matter of time before it expands to 24. You’re looking at a month long tournament that would dazzle fans, fill stadiums and send ratings through the roof. The rest of the teams not in the playoffs can take the holidays off and get ready for the next season.
Of course, that’s not something Texas needs to worry about … at least not this year.
TWEETS OF INTEREST:
I wouldn’t bet on Texas just sliding into mediocrity after they move to the SEC next season.
###################################
The more I look into this year’s playoffs, the more convinced I am that Texas should actually be the favorite to win it all.
###################################
Poor Kirk Herbstreit is getting pounded by angry FSU fans.
###################################
The NCAA lost a court hearing where some players, who had already used their one-time transfer portal exemption, to transfer again without penalty.
Which means the transfer portal could see even more people jump into the mix.
###################################
Speaking of television ratings. This year’s Army/Navy game drew pretty good numbers. And, let’s face it, if you’re not into watching this game then you are, in fact, anti-American.
Let’s just hope next season’s game turns out a little better.
Go Navy! Beat Army!
###################################
Finally … good luck to the volleyball team as they get ready to defend their national championship.
Last edited by a moderator:
