Kyler Murray has a lot on his plate right now. He’s locked in a quarterback competition with JJ McCarthy for the Minnesota Vikings, trying to prove he can stay healthy and still play at the level that made him a No. 1 overall pick. But Monday, he took a minute to celebrate something from his past.
Murray sent a shoutout to Oklahoma baseball after the Sooners won the College World Series, crushing North Carolina 13-2 in the final game of the championship series. He posted on X that it was a “long time coming” and gave props to coach Skip Johnson and the team for bringing home the national title.
Murray played for Oklahoma back in 2017, eight seasons ago. He hit 10 home runs, drove in 47 runs, and batted .296. That was good enough for the Oakland A’s to take him with the No. 9 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft.
The baseball path that almost was
The A’s knew Murray might never play a single game for them. He was still committed to playing quarterback at Oklahoma, and the draft risk was real. But scouting director Eric Kubota told MLB.com at the time that the upside was worth it. “As a staff, we just felt like Kyler was a unique talent,” Kubota said. “The risk of the football was, in our opinion, outweighed by the upside on the baseball field.” He added that the A’s were totally on board with Murray’s desire to play quarterback and that they were excited to be Oklahoma fans for 12 games a year.
That excitement lasted until the 2019 NFL Draft, when the Arizona Cardinals made Murray the No. 1 overall pick. He signed a guaranteed rookie deal worth over $35 million and never looked back at baseball. He won AP Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2019 and made back-to-back Pro Bowls in 2020 and 2021.
But things have been rougher since. Injuries piled up. He played just 11 games in 2022, eight in 2023, and five last season. That’s why he’s now in Minnesota, trying to win a starting job and prove he’s still got it.
The Vikings are betting on him staying healthy. He’s battling McCarthy, last year’s first-round pick, and it’s not clear who will start Week 1. But for one day at least, Murray wasn’t thinking about that. He was just a former Sooner watching his old team win a title and feeling good about it.
As for what he could have been on the baseball diamond? We’ll never really know. The A’s took the gamble and lost the player to football. But Oklahoma’s championship is a reminder that Murray was a legit two-sport talent once. Maybe that’s enough.
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