‘It drove me’ — How Kenneth Murray turned his bold prediction into reality
By Daniel Popper
On Jan. 10, 2017, Kenneth Murray tweeted a bold proclamation.
At the time, Murray was a three-star linebacker recruit who had committed to Oklahoma a few months prior. Bob Stoops’ coaching staff, including Tim Kish, the inside linebackers coach who recruited Murray out of Houston, knew Murray had significant potential. But he was raw. He had plenty of work to do to simply earn a starting job in Norman. Reaching the NFL? As a first-round pick? No one was predicting that kind of leap this early.
Except for Murray, that is.
People learn quickly when they spend time with him.
“He’s very strong-minded,” Kish said this week in a phone interview with The Athletic. “He’s very strong-willed.”
A little more than three years after that tweet, Murray’s prophecy came true. The Chargers traded back into the first round in April to draft Murray 23rd overall.
Murray’s only mistake was the position he forecasted. The Oklahoma staff saw pass-rushing potential in Murray, but they felt like playing him at the line of scrimmage would detract from his greatest attribute: his relentless and violent pursuit of the football.
“You don’t want to slow a guy down who has that type of mentality,” Kish said.
When NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced Murray’s name during the virtual draft, he became the first Oklahoma linebacker to be drafted in the first round since Jackie Shipp in 1984.
That’s an interesting nugget in its own right. But the more telling aspect is that Murray not only knew who Shipp was but also used Shipp’s place in OU history as motivation during this college career — motivation to make his 2017 tweet become a reality.
“It drove me every day,” Murray said the night he was drafted. “I wanted to be that guy to get OU back on the map defensively.”
Shipp and Murray have never met, but they are inextricably linked. Shipp coached the defensive line at Oklahoma from 1999 to 2012. He groomed Gerald McCoy, who, before Murray, was the last OU defensive player to be drafted in the first round, in 2010.
“It would be more of a spiritual connection,” Shipp, who now coaches at Nevada, said of Murray in a phone interview with The Athletic. “But he played at Oklahoma. So that’s a brotherhood right there.”
Murray has never tempered his hopes. He has always gazed farther than other players, dreamed bigger and expected more.
Kish remembers the first time he met with Murray, before the 2017 season when Murray was a freshman who had yet to play a collegiate down.
“He came in with very lofty goals,” Kish said with a laugh. “He wanted to be first-team All-Big 12. He wanted to be an All-American. And he did mention the fact that he wanted to play in the NFL.”
“I smiled and I said, ‘Well, we got a lot of work to do,’” Kish added. “But I never, ever want anybody to shortchange their goals. He was all about football. He loved the game.”
Pretty much every Division I player has those goals and wants to reach the pinnacle of the sport. But to say it out loud, in the very first meeting with his position coach? That is what set Murray apart.
“That is unique,” Kish said. “He was going to set that bar as high as he could set it. That’s one of the beauties of the whole thing, is when you have that kind of mentality, the sky is the limit. And we just rolled with him.”
“He had a list of goals that he was going to chase, and more power to him,” Kish added. “I just wish I had all those guys thinking that way.”
Murray earned a starting job at MIKE linebacker as a freshman, beating out several upperclassmen with playing experience. He finished with 68 tackles that season. The following year, he arrived on the national stage, totaling 155 tackles, including 12.5 for losses, and 4.5 sacks.
“It really came into fruition his sophomore year, about halfway through the season, and he just took off,” Kish said. “We knew we had something special in him.”
The Chargers feel the same way. Head coach Anthony Lynn called him “one of my favorite players in the draft.”
For Murray, this is one dream achieved. You can be sure he has compiled a new set of goals. With a spotlight on him now, he likely won’t tweet them out. But they are there, pushing him further, lifting him to excellence, resting, always, on the horizon — in sight, but far enough away to make clear the effort necessary to get there.
Shipp paved the way for Murray when he was drafted in the first round in 1984.
The last OU linebacker to make a Pro Bowl was Jerry Tubbs in 1962.
There is more history to be made.
“You never know who might be watching you and what might come of it,” Shipp said. “I hope he has a great, outstanding career.”
theathletic.com/1981990/2020/08/07/it-drove-me-how-kenneth-murray-turned-his-bold-prediction-into-reality/
