What DeMarco Murray's One-Game Suspension Means for Oklahoma

The NCAA announced Tuesday a list of sanctions for recruiting violations committed by the Sooners' running backs coach, who will miss Friday's season opener.

Oklahoma runnings back coach DeMarco Murray during a practice for the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) football team in Norman, Okla., Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

DeMarco Murray is one of Oklahoma's most decorated and accomplished football players. But he's still relatively new to the business of coaching college football.

On Tuesday, Murray learned a hard lesson about NCAA violations.

According to an announcement by the NCAA, Murray and the university agreed to penalties levied by the NCAA for a handful of Level II recruiting violations in 2022 and 2023. Among the penalties handed down, Murray will serve a one-game suspension this season.

A university spokesman confirmed Tuesday afternoon that Murray will miss Friday's season opener against Temple and the suspension will not be deferred to a game later in the 2024 season.

OU has known about the investigation and the coming penalties, and worked with the NCAA to self-impose several sanctions.

Oklahoma has been at the forefront of NCAA compliance since 2006, when quarterback Rhett Bomar and two other players were dismissed from the team for taking money from a local car dealership for work not performed. The university moved its NCAA compliance department from athletics to the president's office and university administration, and since then, athletic director Joe Castiglione has been fervent in his efforts to promote a spirit of compliance in his department.

That spirit may have helped OU avoid further sanctions this time, as head football coach Brent Venables was implicated for violating head coach responsibility rules.

"Head coaches are presumed responsible for the actions of their staff, and as a result, Venables violated head coach responsibility rules," the NCAA wrote. "In this case, however, some of the violations occurred prior to rules changes effective in January 2023 that shifted head coach responsibility rules from a rebuttable presumption to automatic. Because Venables was not personally involved in the violations and demonstrated that he promoted an atmosphere of compliance and monitored his staff, Venables rebutted his presumed responsibility for some of the earlier violations. For the same reasons, the parties also agreed that a suspension penalty for Venables was not appropriate."

Murray's violations happened when he contacted 17 recruits and their families over a period of 16 months. He made 65 impermissible phone calls and sent 36 impermissible text messages outside of the mandated contact window. Murray claimed he didn't know that the NCAA's waiver that allowed an extended contact window due to COVID-19 had expired, but the NCAA determined the university had “properly educated” football coaches on the expiration of the waiver.

The NCAA also said former track coach Tim Langford, who was fired in November, illegally “directed a female student-athlete to provide some of her scholarship funds to two student-athletes on the men’s track & field program.” In total, the NCAA’s investigation found an amount of $2,020 ($1,010 each) had been redistributed from an unidentified female athlete to two unidentified men’s athletes towards their rent at the behest of Langford. Langford denied the action, but the NCAA and OU investigated and determined he was lying.

The university released a statement first obtained and reported by Tulsa World's Eric Bailey.

"The university discovered the violations through its monitoring systems and investigated, reported and addressed the matters promptly and appropriately. The violations in questions were limited to the actions of a coach [Langford] who is no longer employed by the university and a current assistant coach," the university stated. "OU worked with the NCAA to manage the review and reach a conclusion, and penalties imposed by the University are already in effect."

The university self-imposed additional penalties, including a reduction in men’s track and field scholarships by 0.1 for the 2023-24 season and previously served prohibitions in direct calls with prospects (served May 29-June 11, 2022 and Aug. 1-31, 2023) as well as vacating the results of track and field competitions in which the ineligible athletes participated.

The NCAA also issued Murray a prohibition from off-campus recruiting during the 2023 fall evaluation period. OU also faces a three-week reduction of recruiting phone and electronic correspondence for the football program from Dec. 8, 2024 to March 31, 2025.

Penalties levied by the NCAA for the combined violations of Murray and Langford, excluding Murray’s one-game suspension, include a one-year probation period and a $5,000 fine. Also, OU can not host prospective student-athletes on unofficial visits for Friday's game against Temple. That won't be considered too damaging because with OU playing on Friday, most unofficial visitors would be playing in their own high school games.

No. 16-ranked OU is a 42-point favorite to beat Temple.

Murray, who left Oklahoma as its all-time career leader in all-purpose yards and touchdowns and became the NFL’s offensive player of the year in 2014 and was an NFL All-Pro with the Dallas Cowboys, has led the Sooners’ running back corps to success in each of his four seasons in the role after becoming a college coach at Arizona in 2019. He returned to his alma mater in 2020 as Lincoln Riley's running backs coach and immediately began making an impact in recruiting. In 2023, the Sooners led the Big 12 with 41.7 points per game and were third in yards per game at 507.0. In 2022, the Sooners averaged a league-high 219.4 rushing yards per game. He was also a four-time Academic All-Big 12 Conference honoree during his time in Norman. After retiring from the NFL, he spent the 2018 season as a Fox studio analyst.

In January, Murray got a raise from $500,000 to $575,000 and a contract extension through 2026. Then in March, after Ohio State looked into hiring Murray, Murray got another raise of $225,000, bumping his annual salary to $800,000 for 2024. He's now set to make $2.525 million over the term of his contract.

It's not clear who will coach OU running backs during Murray's suspension. Quarterbacks coach Seth Littrell is coaching just his second game as as the OC and quarterbacks coach, tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley is working his second game as co-offensive coordinator, Emmett Jones will coach receivers and Bill Bedenbaugh has the offensive line. Nick Basquine, Ty Hatcher, Kevin Jones and Jack Lowary are OU's offensive analysts, and Ben Tawwater is the Sooners' offensive graduate assistant.