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Nico

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  1. I thought some of you might enjoy this read from TheAthletic (2019).

    The Seductive Unknown: Why 2022 QB Maalik Murphy is getting Power 5 offers before making his first varsity start

    Spoiler

    GARDENA, Calif. — When private quarterbacks coach Danny Hernandez first encountered 2022 quarterback prospect Maalik Murphy when Murphy was a fourth-grader, he noticed something was a bit different.

    Murphy had already been working out with his cousin Reggie Bell, who played quarterback at Eastern Michigan and was about seven or eight years older. They had spent many summer days throwing a football around the front yard, but there always was one stipulation.

    “He’d never let me use the little (youth) ball,” Murphy said, “so I got used to throwing a bigger ball.”

    “Maalik was showing up to workouts with an Eastern Michigan football,” Hernandez said. “And I was like, ‘You’re only in fourth grade; you can throw a youth football.’ He was like, ‘Nah, I want to throw this one, Coach.’ So he was throwing the big ball already at a young age. Mechanically, his body is going all over the place as he’s trying to muscle up these throws. But he was doing it.”

    These days, instead of larger footballs, Murphy carries offers — from Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, LSU, USC and others — greater than what his level of experience might typically suggest.

    The interesting aspect of it all is Murphy has never started a varsity game and might not be the full-time starter at Junipero Serra High School (Gardena, Calif.) this season. But Murphy wasn’t like most kids his age back in fourth grade, and the same holds true to this day for the 15-year-old quarterback who’s already 6-foot-4 and 206 pounds. Murphy is patiently waiting for the opportunity to showcase the immense potential that has generated so much buzz on the recruiting trail this offseason.

    Ron Murphy, Maalik’s father, received the first hint his son’s talent level was something different at a pretty young age.

    “I knew when he was 7 years old and he was playing junior peewee (with the Carson Colts),” Ron said, “and he threw a 30- or 40-yard bomb to an outside receiver. I said, ‘Oh, my God. Look at that form. And look at that ball.’”

    Serra coach Scott Altenberg, who coached Arizona QB Khalil Tate, received his introduction when Murphy was in sixth grade and he would run into the young quarterback at youth football camps.

    “He was unbelievable at that time because he was a sixth-grader and throwing with the eighth-graders,” Altenberg said. “But, man, he was so talented even when he was a sixth-grader.”

    If you need more evidence that Murphy’s talent is greater than what his age might indicate, just go back to a few weeks ago at Steve Clarkson’s Quarterback Retreat. There were several talented quarterbacks at Palisades Charter High School that weekend — Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa, Michigan’s Shea Patterson and now-Oklahoma QB Jalen Hurts were among those in attendance — and several of them participated in the long-throw competition.

    Yet it was Murphy who walked away the winner, with a 74-yard throw.

    The potential and the skill set have always been there, and so have the size and frame to harness that talent. Hernandez can recall when Murphy was shorter and chubbier, but his body has grown way past that stage. Murphy estimates he was about 5-foot-11 in seventh grade. On the first day of eighth grade, he was 6-2.

    “(He was) growing out of his clothes, his shoes,” Ron said. “I had to get a bigger bed.”

    That’s not to mention the Osgood-Schlatter disease that plagued Murphy’s knees as a result of those growth spurts. When he spoke with The Athletic earlier this week, Murphy looked all of 6-4.

    A few years ago, a doctor told Murphy he’d eventually grow to somewhere between 6-7 and 6-9. Murphy takes that projection with a grain of salt because the doctor said he’d also be 300 pounds, and at 206, that seems like a long shot.

    But as opposed to most quarterbacks who might fib their height by a couple of inches, Murphy is more apt to take some off his because he doesn’t want to be taller than 6-6.

    “I think it’s just nasty,” he said with a laugh. “Being 6-foot-8 playing football just doesn’t seem right unless I’m a tight end or something.”

    Despite Ron’s attempts to sway his son toward basketball — citing longevity — Maalik’s future seems pretty set at quarterback. And it was Maalik’s 14th birthday when the path started to become clearer.

    Maalik was sitting next to his mother, Alycia, on Feb. 13, 2018 — his 14th birthday — when he got the call from Hernandez.

    Hernandez wanted Murphy to talk to then-Indiana quarterbacks coach Nick Sheridan (who now coaches tight ends).

    “He put me on the call with the coach from Indiana,” Murphy recalled, “and he said the magical words. It felt unreal. I was really excited, and there’s no other way to start your birthday.”

    The scholarship offer wouldn’t become public until months later, and Colorado State soon followed, which meant Murphy had multiple scholarship offers before he even enrolled at Serra.

    Murphy was the starting quarterback as a freshman … on Serra’s JV team. Serra started Doug Brumfield at quarterback for the varsity last season, a three-star prospect who committed to UNLV in May.

    Brumfield returns this season, so despite the talent, the potential and the offers, there is no guarantee Murphy is the starter this season, though both quarterbacks will play.

    “Doug, he’s the returning starter, and he’s had a great career for me,” Altenberg said. “It works in Maalik’s favor because he gets to work with Doug, too. Doug’s ability mentally is so amazing. … Watching what Maalik can do with his arm, he has a different skill set, and I think I can use them both.”

    Altenberg acknowledged the dynamic between them could have the potential to be bad on its face but said Brumfield has been pretty generous when it comes to teaching Murphy the offense, and Murphy has been a willing listener.

    Another reason Murphy’s playing time was so limited last season was that he broke his ankle midway through the season against Bishop Amat (La Puente, Calif.). But the lack of film, or experience, hasn’t deterred schools from offering Murphy.

    LSU offered him on Christmas. Florida State offered a day after the Tigers. Michigan came in with an offer a month later. Then came Georgia, Ohio State and Oregon in the days and weeks after that.

    Florida and Texas have offered Murphy as well. All of this, of course, raises the natural question of how a player who has yet to start a varsity game could garner all these scholarship offers.

    “This kid has a certain attitude about him. He’s able to make every throw. The kid moves well for his size,” Hernandez said. “Even though he’s a loose, keep-it-fun type of guy, you can still see the maturity in him when it comes to his actual craft. That’s all offers are anyway, based off potential. ‘How do I project this guy to me by the time he gets to me?’ So if you’re taking a look at the kid already right now, as a coach, you know you’ve got to get into it right now because you don’t want to be left behind.

    “It’s very similar to DJ (Uiagalelei). When I talked to a lot of coaches, I kind of used the comparison to DJ, to be honest with you. DJ was a guy that was picking up offers from all these places when he was playing freshman ball; then he was the backup. Well, how was he getting these offers? Well, there are certain guys you look at and say, ‘I can’t really miss on this guy.’ He’s clean enough mechanically. He’s big enough. He has all these things.”

    Murphy has no intentions of making any early moves when it comes to the recruiting process. He’s still young and has so much time before he has to make a decision. He wants to wait it out and find the perfect place for him.

    That place might be Oregon, which he has said several times is his dream school.

    “Ever since I was about 6 years old,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to go there for some reason.”

    He has a good relationship with Ohio State’s new passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach, Mike Yurcich, as well.

    Murphy has made three recent trips to USC — one for a seven-on-seven tournament, one for the Trojans’ Rising Stars recruiting camp and another unofficial visit with some teammates. Murphy received the offer he had been waiting on from USC after the passing tournament, and he did well enough at Rising Stars that he was one of the top performers Clay Helton singled out after the camp.

    “(It’s) hard to explain,” Murphy said. “It felt amazing to be noticed like that by the coaches.”

    Murphy isn’t sure how the hometown school will factor into his recruiting, but right now it’s among many suitors. The rising sophomore doesn’t give much thought to his scholarship offers, and that might be the best approach.

    “I don’t put a whole lot of stock in early offers,” said 247Sports’ national recruiting analyst Greg Biggins, who believes Murphy has enough upside to be the No. 1 QB in his recruiting cycle. “I think it shows schools value him and he’s got a whole lot of upside. There’s no real harm in offering the guy. If the kid does develop and blow up, we can say, ‘Hey, we offered you first.’ If that player doesn’t develop, you can stop recruiting them. So the offer never really happened. When you have offers from those schools, it creates a buzz from the rest of the country. So that’s good for the player. I’ve also seen it work both ways.

    “I’ve seen a kid get a sense of entitlement early on and kind of (fail to) work as hard because they’re like, ‘I already got the offers; I don’t need to work as hard.’ I’ve seen kids regress from their freshman year on when they got early offers. So hopefully with Maalik, I think he’s the kind of kid who will work hard.”

    There are some things that Hernandez wants Murphy to tighten up mechanically, like his loopy delivery, for example, but the biggest thing he wants to monitor is Murphy’s mindset.

    “He’s got so much, so fast,” Hernandez said. “I’ve got to keep him grounded and keep him hungry and let him know, ‘Hey, dude, you haven’t arrived yet. Even though you have all this attention, everyone’s basing a lot of this stuff off potential.’”

    Altenberg has heard the concern from other coaches. A freshman with offers must be a nightmare to handle.

    “Normally, that would be,” Altenberg said, “but he’s not that kind of kid. He wants to compete; he wants to get after it. He doesn’t want to sit back. He knows he has these offers, but in the end, you’re still going to have to re-earn them.”

    Murphy will put work in on the seven-on-seven circuit and elsewhere this summer. But the opportunity to prove himself won’t come until Serra opens its season on Aug. 30. The stage he’s been waiting for will finally belong to him.

    “I can’t wait, because there is a lot of hype on him right now,” Ron Murphy said. “I told him he has a lot to prove. I said, ‘The platform is big on you, man.’ Because everybody is like, ‘What the hell is going on with this kid right here?’ Because he really hasn’t touched the varsity field and this and that. So I get it, and I’m the same way.

    “I’m thinking, ‘Son, you better come out here and show out.’”

     

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