Keith Strudler: Kyler Murray’s Last Stand

There are a few select awards that truly resonate, distinctions that have a weight and gravitas beyond the rest. Awards that brand a recipient for life. Things like an Oscar, a Pulitzer, a Nobel Peace Prize, maybe a Grammy. And perhaps the Heisman. The Heisman trophy is the grand champion of all individual awards in college sports, big enough to have its own eponymous pose and televised award show. The Heisman Trophy goes essentially to the most valuable player in college football, although that’s something of a simplification. According to the Heisman Trust, the organization behind the award, the Heisman “recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity.” What that’s come to mean over the years is it typically goes to the best quarterback, or sometimes running back, that plays for one of the top teams in the country that wins almost every game and consistently stays in the hunt for a national championship. Which means that since 2000, we’ve had 18 quarterbacks and two running backs from exclusively major Division I schools – including four Oklahoma Sooners and two each from Alabama, USC, and Florida State. These are the most glamourous, well known, successful football winners, your leading men so to speak. And presumably the next generation of professional football luminaries, guys who would go on to quarterback Super Bowl champions and make millions of dollars in the process.

For some, that’s the trajectory. Like quarterbacks Cam Newton, the 2010 Heisman Winner, and Baker Mayfield from last year, who’s perhaps the first glimmer of hope for the Cleveland Browns since Bernie Kosar. For many others, their NFL timelines are shorter and less bright. Say Tim Tebow, who despite being one of the greatest college quarterbacks in history makes his living as a TV commentator and motivational speaker. Johnny Manziel flamed out quickly, and players like Troy Smith found marginal success before losing their spot to someone younger and allegedly better. So being the Heisman winner is no bellwether for NFL greatness, but it typically means at least a high pick in the draft and spot on roster.

That will likely not be the case for this year’s recently announced Heisman winner Kyler Murray, quarterback from the University of Oklahoma. Murray was announced the winner last weekend, outpacing the year’s frontrunner Tua Tagovailoa from the University of Alabama. Murray put up gaudy numbers in leading Oklahoma to the Big 12 championship and an upcoming playoff berth against no other than Tagovailoa and his Alabama Crimson. So we’ll get a chance to see if the Heisman voters had the right idea, to the extent that any single game can affirm their decision. And assuming Tagovailoa’s ankle heals in time, which perhaps played into why he didn’t win the award in the first place. But that’s another story.

What’s interesting is that if Oklahoma loses, and they probably will, this may actually be the last time we ever see Murray play football. Not just college football, since everyone would assume he’d leave Oklahoma for the pros. But any kind of football. In other words, after Oklahoma plays Alabama in the semifinals, or perhaps in the finals against Clemson or Notre Dame, Kyler Murray may hang up his helmet and pads for good.

That’s because in addition to being a really really good football player, Kyler Murray is also a baseball star. In fact, he was drafted ninth in last summer’s Major League Baseball draft by the Oakland A’s, which came with a $5 million signing bonus and a guaranteed four year contract once he joins the team this spring. He won’t be able to make crazy big money – at least in sports terms – until after that contract is up, at which point Murray could make a mint as a free agent. That’s assuming he’s as good at the A’s think he is, which we’ll find out.

But Murray doesn’t have to play baseball. He could easily return the five million, enter the NFL draft, and have a career as NFL quarterback. Which he seems complete inclined not to do. And which everyone is telling him not to do, for like twenty reasons, starting with the fact that baseball players have longer careers and fewer life altering injuries. We don’t have to the time to talk about why athletes would increasingly choose pro baseball over football right now, but everyone knows the subtext.

But at least for the moment, I think it’s worth appreciating Kyler Murray’s last stand as a football player. Too often we see college sports simply as a stepping stone to pro sports, so much that top athletes frequently sit out bowl games or even big parts of the season so they don’t get hurt – which I completely understand. Because college sports is simply a process that’s been mandated by the cartels that are the NCAA and NFL. But for Kyler Murray, this last football game, or games, and the Heisman that came before it, they are his reason for being. Not as a prelude, but a performance on its own. We should appreciate that, since in today’s commercial world of commodified athletes, it doesn’t happen all that often.

Which is why Kyler Murray and his Heisman should resonate. And why this award is significant beyond most others.

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