NFL: Cleveland Browns at Arizona Cardinals
Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) exchanges jerseys with Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) following the game at State Farm Stadium on Dec. 15, 2019.
The mere mention of the name made Kyler Murray laugh this week. As he answered questions about the upcoming game between the Vikings and the Buccaneers, a reporter asked Murray about his relationship with Baker Mayfield.
“That’s my guy,” Murray said. “I respect the hell out of him and what he’s been through.”
The feelings are mutual as Mayfield sang Murray’s praises this week. After briefly taking a trip down memory lane, Mayfield dropped a nugget about Murray’s competitive fire, which he experienced firsthand when they were college teammates at Oklahoma nearly a decade ago.
“I understand when people don’t like him,” Mayfield said. “I’d say the same about myself.”
Naturally, they were on the same page about that, too.
“I’d say the same (expletive) about him,” Murray said with a smile. “We’re both competitors and we’re going to do anything to win. Sometimes that might rub people the wrong way. He’s a great dude and a fierce competitor.”
The friendly rivalry will add another chapter when the Vikings play the Buccaneers on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. They have already met a few times in the NFL, and the edge currently goes to Murray, who has a 3-0 record against Mayfield.
That they both made it to the NFL as undersized quarterbacks is a testament to their talent. Murray and Mayfield would both agree it was also a byproduct of them pushing each other as college teammates once upon a time.
“We competed every day,” Murray said. “You couldn’t even imagine the amount of time we spent together. We would be talking trash to each other and competing with whatever we were doing, then after practice we would ride home together and it was all great. I loved my time with him.”
The competitiveness between Murray and Mayfield was constant. They competed at everything from who could throw the tightest spiral in practice to who could answer questions first in the meeting room. They even competed for bragging rights when Murray’s alma mater, Allen, would take on Mayfield’s alma mater, Lake Travis in Texas high school football bouts
“It showed up everywhere,” said Lincoln Riley, the former head coach at Oklahoma and current head coach at USC. “You knew whoever lost at whatever it was was going to hear it from the other. They also did a great job never crossing the line. It was always a healthy competition that brought out the best in each other.”
That says a lot considering the circumstance that brought them together.
After walking on at Oklahoma and quickly establishing himself as a fan favorite, Mayfield was the unquestioned starter when Murray arrived on campus as the presumed backup despite being a highly touted transfer. The situation could’ve been combustible.
It proved to be being the complete opposite, as Mayfield wholeheartedly embraced the competition while never letting himself get complacent, and Murray humbly accepted his role while always striving to get better.
“It turned out to be a real positive for us when it could’ve been a real negative for us,” Riley said. “Usually the quarterbacks are always going to have a big say in the leadership of the team and the vibe of the team and having Baker and Kyler handle it the way they did was huge.”
That mentality fostered an environment that trickled down to the rest of the roster.
“It was interesting, because Baker was already the guy when Kyler showed up,” said Rodney Anderson, a former star running back at Oklahoma. “We were riding tough with Baker and then here comes Kyler, who we all knew was a phenomenal athlete. We were all interested to see how that dynamic was going to play out and what the competition was going to be like. It ended up being unlike anything that I had ever seen.”
As they pushed each other behind the scenes, Mayfield and Murray managed to do something that has never been done. They became the the only quarterbacks from the same school to ever win the Heisman Trophy in consecutive years — Mayfield in 2017 and Murray in 2018 — as well as the only quarterbacks from the same school to be selected with the No. 1 pick in consecutive NFL Drafts.
There’s a particular moment that stands out to Anderson when thinking back on that magical run. After an obscene gesture by Mayfield resulted in him getting benched for the first series of the following game as punishment, Murray got the start for Oklahoma against West Virginia.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘You’re only in for the first series. Just hand me the ball and we’ll go score,'” Anderson said. “We ran an RPO and I clamped down pretty hard and he yanked it like, ‘Nah. This is mine.’ I did my little fake and I looked up and he’s 40 yards down the field. I was like, ‘Oh yeah. This is Kyler Murray. We’re good.'”
It went down as a 66-yard run for Murray that set the crowd of more than 80,000 people ablaze. Maybe the most excited person in the home stadium was Mayfield watching on the sideline.
“They were highly competitive people who were all about ball and all about winning,” Riley said. “They definitely fed off of each other, challenged each other, and pushed each other to be great.”
There were multiple appearances in the College Football Playoff for Oklahoma with Mayfield and Murray leading the charge.
“I think the fan base expected the next national championship was coming with either Baker or Kyler,” said Mark Rodgers a local radio host who has been deeply entrenched in the program since his childhood. “That’s because it was a time where it felt like going into any game we knew the offense was going to be able to score against anybody.”
Though neither Mayfield nor Murray were able to get Oklahoma over the hump, they helped restore the program as a national powerhouse. It’s been hard to recapture that vibe since their departure.
“You hear people say, ‘I wish we knew we were in the good old days before the good old days have passed,'” Anderson said. “I think the fan base would say something similar about that time looking back on it now.”
As he reflected on that experience, Riley noted how lucky he was to have Mayfield and Murray, and how lucky they were to have each other.
“Obviously they were still very talented,” Riley said. “I’m not saying they wouldn’t still have been really good players. I just think that made them both so much better and helped turn them into really great players. It was instrumental to both of their careers.”
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