No player in college football is more valuable than OU’s QB
As he has so many times this season, Kyler Murray took the snap with the game— and the season— hanging in the balance.
Facing a fourth down with 2:36left at West Virginia, hedropped back, looked right andmotioned for a receiver. Nothing.
He ran left, looking for another option.
Nope.
He headed back right, motioning and pointing again.
Nada.
He looked back left, and finally, the Oklahoma quarterback planted his feet and fired to CeeDee Lamb, who came back, slid and made the catch.
For seven seconds, Murray had the ball in his hands.
Seven seconds. That’s an eternity in any situation, but it’s darn near crazy when the game is on line. (I mean, who among us thought the Sooner defense would stop the Mountaineers if they got the ball back with more than 2 minutes remaining?) But Murray wasn’t flustered. Or concerned. Or hurried. He never is.
On a weekend he could carry OU to a College Football Playoff berth and stake a claim to the Heisman Trophy, Murray has a chance to do both because of the way he makes crucial plays at critical moments. He is best when stakes are highest.
“Some of that is natural,” Sooner coach Lincoln Riley said. “I think some guys are born with that. And then some of that also comes through your preparation, your work, your confidence in your scheme.
“It takes all those things, and I think he has that.”
Murray has shown it repeatedly this season. In overtime against Army. On the road at Iowa State. In a deep hole against Texas. When his team has needed a play— or six— he has delivered.
Because of that, no player in college football is more valuable to his team. NotGardner Minshew or Dwayne Haskins or Will Grier.
Not even Tua Tagovailoa.
The Alabama quarterback, of course, is the frontrunner for the Heisman. Has been since the second half of the national title game last season. That game shouldn’t be a factor in this season’s Heisman voting— says “the Outstanding College Football Player of the United States for 2018” right there on the ballot— but Tagovailoa’s heroics against Georgia are no doubt remembered.
But this season, his most pressure-packed play might’ve been in the third quarter after a lackluster first half against The Citadel. Alabama has steamrolled opponents, becoming the first major-college team to beat every opponent by at least 20 points. Tagovailoa is part of that machinery, but he’s largely been able to play free and easy every Saturday.
Because of the Sooners’ Swiss cheese defense, Murray has been under the gun from the word go. And still, Murray’s completion percentage is higher than Tagovailoa’s, 70.6 percent to 70.3, and his quarterback rating is only slightly lower, 206.8 to 212.5.
“We’ve got a lot of players that are really good,” he said.
But Murray admitted this is something he dreamed about and worked for.
“His pulse through games stays pretty much the same,” Riley said. “The back and forth we have during the game is not that much different than it is in a meeting room or on a practice field.
“He’s kind of got that ability, regardless of the moment, to be able to kind of stay in it.”
Kyler Murray has kept the Sooners in it time and again, and because of that, the trophy case may soon have some new hardware.