Getty Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray
We can’t put anything past Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Kyler Murray at this point. But even his most recent hope may be an extreme longshot. During Heisman Trophy media day, Murray spoke with the media on a wide range of topics, one of which included his sports future. While he’s set to head to play Major League Baseball following this season, it seems his sights are still set on something more.
As The Athletic’s Julian McWilliams revealed, Murray has interest in playing both football and baseball professionally.
It’s an eye-opening statement from Murray, and it’s been expected all along he’d join the Oakland Athletics after this season with the Sooners. This also goes a bit against the original comment made by his agent, Drew Boras, per The Athletic’s Jason Kersey.
“Kyler’s baseball career has a very defined path which includes playing football at OU for only the 2018 season,” Boras told The Athletic.
Murray was made a first-round selection by the Oakland Athletics in the 2018 MLB Draft in June. That hasn’t stopped his superb collegiate season from creating buzz around the 21-year-old potentially having an NFL future, though. And if that did wind up happening, there’d certainly be teams interested in the idea of adding him to the mix.
But a two-sport professional athlete? That’s more than a bit of a long shot.
Kyler Murray’s Stellar Season With Sooners
Murray received his full-time opportunity as a starting quarterback in 2018 and took advantage of the chance. Through 13 games, the junior has completed 70.9 percent of his passes for 4,053 yards, 40 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. He’s been a force on the ground as well, rushing for 892 yards on 123 attempts with 11 additional scores.
His play made him a Heisman Trophy finalist and has only added to the hype that he could play at the NFL level, should he opt to go that route. It’s unknown whether or not Murray will be able to carve out any type of unique path, but he’d have a lot of convincing to do if that were the case.
While ESPN broke down a list many years ago of NFL players who were impressive on the diamond, none of them helped build a case for Murray as a two-sport athlete. Names like Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Golden Tate landed near the top of the list of players headlined. Jameis Winston, Colin Kaepernick and Kyle Long were among other names who either heard their names called in the MLB draft or had some success as players.
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