On Wednesday evening, a report broke indicating the Kansas City Chiefs will be hiring Oklahoma running backs coach DeMarco Murray to the same position. As he turns 38 years old today, Murray is seemingly ready to leap from collegiate coaching to the NFL after seven years (six at his alma mater).
The former AP Offensive Player of the Year for the Dallas Cowboys was first an All-Big 12 back for the Sooners, and took a lot of pride coaching this generation of Oklahoma running backs. That was clear from a segment on 96.5 The Fan Thursday morning, when co-hosts Bob Fescoe and Dusty Likins interviewed Jesse Crittenden, an Oklahoma beat reporter and editor for OU Insider.
Crittenden began by emphasizing how tough a decision this may have been for Murray.
“He’s coming to Kansas City because he wants to be there, specifically,” Crittenden began. “I think it’s important to know that DeMarco Murray is an OU guy… he has been at OU for the last six years and has loved being at his alma mater. He has been chased by a lot of top programs, and even some NFL programs, over the last few years, but continued to stay at OU because he loved to be there so much.”
“I think this jump to Kansas City is because he wants to be there,” Crittenden emphasized. “He wants to be with the Chiefs, he wants to be on Andy Reid’s staff, and I think he is excited about jumping from college football to the NFL.“
The beat reporter elaborated, mentioning that big-time programs like Ohio State and Michigan — even the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL — have shown interest in Murray before. Yet, when the Chiefs reached out, it was hard to turn down.
“Andy Reid and that staff reached out to OU and [head coach] Brett Venables in the last few days once he became a real target for the Chiefs staff,” Crittenden said. “I think he really thought about staying at OU despite how exciting that opportunity was. I think the opportunity to coach under Andy Reid and be on that staff was a real thing for him. I think the culture in Kansas City, obviously, the success they’ve had over the last several years, played a huge role for him.”
“As much as I think he likes the idea of jumping to the NFL, he wasn’t going to do it for just any reason,” Crittenden declared. “If he was going to do that, he could’ve done it a few years ago… For him, it’s not only the jump to the NFL, but I think it’s the opportunity to learn on that staff and develop himself as a coach.”
When asked about Murray’s performance as the running backs coach from 2020 to 2025, Crittenden acknowledged it was not all highs with no lows. However, it seemed to start with two anecdotes of development.
“His first couple of seasons, in 2020 and 2021, the running game was good; he developed guys like Rhammondre Stevenson,” Crittenden reflected. “Even in 2022… Eric Gray was one of the best runners in college football that season and eventually got drafted, and that kind of came out of nowhere. Eric Gray kind of went from a change-of-pace back guy to a true, bellcow running back and was one of the biggest bright spots that season.”
“You look at the last three years, and he has done really well as a recruiter,” Crittenden continued. “He has done a really good job of getting young talent in the door, but there have definitely been some ups and downs with that.”
With that fact in mind, Fescoe and Likins asked if there was anything to an Oklahoma fan’s input from the text line that Murray was a “hard-nosed” coach, similar to new Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.
“I think there’s real excitement from DeMarco to be with Bieniemy, as well,” Crittenden noted. “There is definitely a hard-nosed component to it. Even a couple of years ago, maybe the best OU running back, Tawee Walker, missed a game because he kind of got into a verbal altercation with DeMarco Murray. When you talk to players that have been in the program, he definitely coaches really, really hard.”
“Even this last year, OU added Jadyn Ott out of Cal,” Crittenden continued. “I think Jadyn Ott was easily one of the biggest transfer-portal players in the country. When OU got him, it was a big deal: he was on All-SEC preseason teams, I think a lot of people were expecting him to be a 1,000-yard rusher… You get to the end of the year, and he didn’t have 100 rushing yards. He barely played, and I think some of that was… once you got in the door, did you work hard enough? Did you fit the system well enough? He barely stepped on the field.”
Ott was a standout at this year’s Senior Bowl, leading to further questions about why he didn’t make an impact for the Sooners in 2025.
It’s clear the match with Bieniemy, Reid and Kansas City sold Murray on leaving Norman, Oklahoma. However it came to fruition, Crittenden believes it will be a strong move for the Chiefs.
“There’s kind of an old-school kind of mentality that he brings, and I do think that could be a real asset to the Chiefs in the NFL.”
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