Oklahoma football: Players respond to ESPN’s ‘overrated’ remark

The Oklahoma Sooners got a nice dose of bulletin board material this past week as ESPN’s Greg McElroy called the Oklahoma the ‘most overrated team’ in the Amway Coach’s poll entering the 2018 season.

Oklahoma, which ranked No. 5 in the poll, is coming off three-straight Big 12 Championships, back-to-back top 10 recruiting classes and welcomes back 11 players on national awards watch lists, but comes in too high for McElroy – a former Alabama quarterback. Washington Wisconsin, Miami, Penn State and Auburn  round out the top 10.

McElroy’s microphone cut out before he could finish his statement, but fellow panelist (and fellow SEC alumnus) Marcus Spears defended his colleague’s take. Spears pointed to obvious questions about the Oklahoma defense, which finished 67^th in the FBS and allowed 349.9 yards per game last year.

The former LSU defensive lineman then went on to question Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray’s commitment to the team after being taken in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft.

“How much is Kyler Murray invested if he’s not the starting quarterback,” Spears said on ESPN’s College Football Live. “Does that leave you with one? And the other guy you don’t feel comfortable with if Kyler Murray decides to go take up a job playing major league baseball or if he just definitely checks out during the season?”

Perhaps it was the product of being put on the spot in short notices due to McElroy’s microphoone malfunction, but Spears’ remarks came off as strange.

He focused on Kyler Murray’s baseball career as if the redshirt junior might pack up and leave the team should he not be named the starter. If that were the case, why would a backup quarterback have so much bearing no a team’s fortune?

He then goes on to suggest Murray might change his mind in the middle of the year to go and play baseball.

The lack of motivation argument has a dull ring to it at best. Murray is delaying the start of a lucrative baseball career and will pay the University of Oklahoma (he can’t be on scholarship) to attend school and play football in 2018.

Murray has long made his love for the game known during interviews. He told the Tulsa World back in January that the upcoming football season was a chance to accomplish a lifetime dream.

“I’ve prepared my whole life to lead a university to a national championship,” Murray told the Tulsa World back in January.

Team reaction

The remark didn’t go unnoticed by Oklahoma football players, including middle linebacker Kenneth Murray and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, who  simply tweeted out “overrated” in quotation marks.

The Sooners used another slight from the network as a rallying cry last year, adopting the nickname “pretenders” after Lee Corso referred to them as such during a preview show before the start of the season.

Even head coach Lincoln Riley acknowledged it in an interview following the Sooners’ 31-16 win over Ohio State last year.

“We’re just a bunch of pretenders that are trying to win some games,” he said according to Oklahoma DieHards.

Can Oklahoma use this as fuel to propel the team to the College Football Playoff as it did a year ago?

There is still a long way to go until the season, but for an Sooners team that is favored by the FPI in every game on the schedule going into the year, it’s always nice to have a little extra motivation and maybe even a fun new mantra to take up as the year goes on.