Lose-lose: Why Texas QB Maalik Murphy is a casualty of college football's broken calendar

With a single decision Wednesday, Maalik Murphy became the most high-profile casualty of college football’s crammed and crappy calendar. 

Murphy entered the transfer portal Wednesday, instantly becoming one of the hottest commodities on the market. The Longhorns’ backup went 2-0 as a starter for Texas this season, throwing for 477 yards and three touchdowns with Quinn Ewers out due to injury. Ewers has yet to officially announce a decision, but all indications are the former No. 1 overall prospect plans to return to Texas in 2024. True freshman quarterback Arch Manning also is set to be back on the Forty Acres next fall. 

So Murhphy’s decision isn’t surprising, but the timing of everything is rotten — for Murphy, for Texas and for all of college football. It shines a spotlight on a broken calendar that pits player versus team because the portal opened on Dec. 4 — a day after Texas made its first-ever College Football Playoff — and close on Jan. 15 — a week after the national championship.  

“I hate it, I hate it,” Murphy told ESPN. “I’m super invested in this team. Everything that we’ve done along the way and all the work we’ve put in together, it’s hard to walk away, especially at this point during the season.”

“It’s nothing against Texas at all,” he added. “I’m doing this purely for me and my future. In my eyes, I’ll always be a Longhorn and a part of this great team.”

Many fans will scoff at those quotes, and criticize the California native for leaving the team in the midst of a championship run. But Murphy didn’t really have a choice. 

Quarterback dominos are falling everywhere across the country. Texas’ backup faced the looming predicament of sticking with the Longhorns through the College Football Playoff but missing potential starting opportunities elsewhere, or entering the transfer portal now and having time to visit schools and land on the best spot for him. 

For a player with so much promise and potential, he faced a lose-lose proposition. 

Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian expressed his understanding and gratitude for Murphy, telling a Houston TV station, “That stuff is always difficult, but Maalik has been an awesome teammate and a great guy to be around. We wouldn’t be in the position that we’re in without him.”

“In this day and age, you have to understand college football and it’s unfortunate that he’s been put in this position where he’s trying to look out for his future, but he was part of a team that’s competing for a national championship,” Sarkisian said.

“This structure of how our seasons go isn’t perfect and we’re all learning as we go with the transfer portal and the playoff and how we manage that for the future, but I love Maalik to death and wish him nothing but the best of luck.”

While Dillion Gabriel (Oregon), Riley Leonard (Notre Dame), Tyler Van Dyke (Wisconsin), Brock Vandagriff (Kentucky) and others have already found landing spots, Murphy should still have plenty of options available with QB-needy programs like Auburn, South Carolina, TCU, Florida State, Ohio State, USC and others. 

But many, or perhaps most, of those schools might’ve grabbed their guy over the next three weeks while Murphy and the Longhorns were busy practicing for their Sugar Bowl game against Washington. Come Jan. 2, or say Jan. 9, his list of suitors would’ve been much different. Even more so had he waited unit the second transfer portal window after spring practice. 

College football’s calendar — where it’s the only sport in America that stuffs its draft (the early signing period), free agency (the transfer portal window), the coaching carousel, bowl games and the playoffs all in the same four-week window — is untenable, and it’s about to get a lot worse with the 12-team playoff next season. 

I don’t have the answers to exactly how to fix this, and clearly, neither does college football because the griping from coaches, staffers, assistants and administrators hasn’t stopped yet nothing’s changed. 

But until the calendar is tweaked — be it adjusting the transfer portal windows, moving back the early signing period or whatever — there will be many more Maalik Murphys in 2024 and beyond bolting CFP teams to best protect their own careers.