Why there is a 'cautiously optimistic' feeling around Maalik Murphy at QB for Texas

Texas will be rolling on without star quarterback Quinn Ewers for the time being as he recovers from a shoulder injury. And it thrusts backup Maalik Murphy into a key role as he’ll be starting in place of Ewers for the foreseeable future.

But having to turn to a backup isn’t causing anyone around the Longhorns to think this might be a lost season. In fact, Inside Texas’ Bobby Burton explained to On3’s Andy Staples that there’s a certainly level of optimism around what the offense could be with Murphy taking snaps.

“Well I think they’re cautiously optimistic. Maalik Murphy had a great spring game as most people know that follow college football, and Texas Longhorn football in particular. He had a great spring game,” Burton said. “The question that we have right now with Maalik Murphy is not so much is ‘Can he do it?’ Andy, it’s what’s going on behind the scenes.

“Murphy missed a practice last week for a non-disclosed illness, injury, something. Arch Manning’s going to have to be ready as well. But all-in-all, once you’re past that, there’s the idea that his teammates really liked Maalik Murphy. He came in against Houston and he didn’t look like the moment was too big for him.”

Murphy was called upon late in a tie game on the road versus Houston and didn’t exactly light it up, but the offense worked fine and Texas managed to take the lead and get a win.

“When he came in, it was 24-24 in the fourth quarter. Maalik had a three-and-out but then led them on the game-winning scoring drive. Longhorns win, he’s well-liked by teammates. I think it’s going to be interesting to see exactly how much of Steve Sarkisian’s offense gets dialed back and fine tuned with either Murphy or Arch Manning being the guy,” Burton said.

And as Murphy is even in position to start for Texas against BYU this weekend, it led Staples to wonder: What kept him from transferring somewhere he’d start after a strong spring?

Burton thinks it comes back to being around Sarkisian.

“I think he likes Steve Sarkisian. And I think he — not a lot of people know this but Maalik’s entire throwing motion has been revamped in a year and Sark did that with him. Maalik used to have this very long release and so the reason Maalik signed with Sark in the first place is because he’s a little bit of a QB whisperer, right? And so he had some faith there. It wasn’t that he was necessarily going to unseat Quinn Ewers this year. But given what Sark has done at USC, at Washington and then at Alabama, it seems to be if you wait in line and bide your time at quarterback under Steve Sarkisian, you’re going to end up cashing a pretty good paycheck,” Burton said.