Steve Sarkisian updates Maalik Murphy timetable, health

Most of, if not all, the quarterback chatter in Austin is surrounding Hudson Card and Quinn Ewers. The two will be battling it out for the starting role throughout the spring and into the fall under head coach Steve Sarkisian. Even so, there is another signal-caller who is gaining attention in freshman Maalik Murphy.

Being the lone quarterback signed in the 2022 recruiting class, Murphy was one of the early commits for Sarkisian after taking over the program. He enrolled early but has not been able to practice yet due to dealing with a foot injury suffered in high school.

On Tuesday, Sarkisian provided a timetable on the newest Texas Longhorns quarterback, saying there is still some time to go before Murphy is back 100%. The head coach admired how Murphy is dealing with the scenario thus far but does not want any kind of setbacks.

“I don’t think it will be anywhere really soon,” said Sarkisian. “You know, it takes time. It’s great that we got him out of the cast. Clearly, there’s some mobility things that we need to work on with him. It’s a severe injury. I give him a lot of credit for staying engaged which is hard to do when you know you’re not going in every practice but he does a really good job in meetings. He’s very attentive, he’s very attentive on the field. I think he takes a lot of good mental reps.

“I think he’s anxious and excited to get going but the worst thing we could do is rush him back and have a setback there. If we get him at the tail end of spring, that would be great. Even doing some routes on air, things of that nature. But more importantly, I want to make sure he’s good to go come summer and then fall camp and away we go.”

Murphy was a four-star prospect on the On3 Consensus coming out of high school, proving to be one of the leaders in Texas’ 2022 recruiting class. He ranked as the No. 13 quarterback in the country and held offers from some of the biggest programs in the country. Besides the Longhorns, Murphy’s only other visit was the UCLA Bruins, taken in June 2019 as a freshman.

Sarkisian was able to get Maalik Murphy to commit early and the quarterback has bought into the vision ever since. While he may not be on track to start this season, Murphy will develop under someone who has a long lineage of producing quarterbacks.

Getting back from his injury is step one before fully getting to work with Sarkisian.