How Kyler Murray's skills in football and baseball mutually enhance each other

The first time Chris Reilly saw Kyler Murray on a baseball field, the Oakland A scout remembers seeing him fly along the first baseline. Reilly timed him, as did the scout beside him.

"We looked at each other and said, 'Oh, boy, it'll be special at some point. "

It was spring 2017 and Murray led the way with an infield single, stole second place, stole third place and scored on a pristine pitch. In six lengths, the future Sooners who started QB and the first A player managed a run.

What Reilly has seen largely explains how Murray destroys the network's defenses. In 2018, Murray runs and runs pretty well to allow Oklahoma to win another Big 12 title despite the loss of Baker Mayfield.

SB Nation spoke to experts about how Murray, the baseball player, informed Murray, the football player, and what the overlap teaches us about the importance of playing multiple sports.

1. Let's start with Murray's legs, who come out of the box of the batters or defenders on the football field.

"Speed, explosiveness – whether in the batter's box, translating this type of hip explosion with torque, or on the basic trajectories – it's rare to find someone with an explosive a short distance and a long distance blast, and he has both, "said Josh Herzenberg, a former Dodgers scout in Texas when Murray was at Allen High School, just north of Dallas. Herzenberg said his first impression was "high-end athletics." I'm not sure I've seen a better athlete on a baseball field ever. "

Herzenberg has experience in evaluating quarterbacks in doubles sport. He spotted former Sooner Cody Thomas, whom the Dodgers would have selected in 2016. Thomas ran a 6.6-km dash, but Herzenberg admits Murray is in a different class. Few athletes do it:

Yogi Roth and Trent Dilfer are in agreement. As coaches of the Elite 11 quarterback camp, they have the opportunity to see the best high school QB each year.

Murray left in 2014 with Josh Rosen and the five Power 5 signers Brandon Wimbush, Deondre Francois and Drew Lock. Murray won a precision contest and presented tools that make him the # 1 dual threat of the same year in the 247Sports Composite.

"I think he was an elite in high school," Roth said. "He could just make small movements out of his pockets or go to a place where he could play a second or third reaction, and it was clear that the kid was special."

Dilfer said that at Elite 11, they focus on "off-platform" throws, when a QB is not in a clean pocket with all that is paced.

"I think that's the reason why off-stage football is experiencing such growth in college football – that it's an RPO, a pass. movement, a bootleg, a sprint, it's because these kids are better equipped from a very young age. Said Dilfer.

2. The most obvious influence of baseball on Murray's football style is at the end of his innings.

Self-preservation is a particularly valuable skill for a 5'10 QB, and Murray has a very high skill.

"We're talking to our guys," said Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley at SB Nation. "If we have a guy who is not good at skiing, we will work with him. He obviously played baseball. But for him, it's something he's already done in football. He knows he does not reach 6'5, 235 pounds. He is very smart to take care of himself. "

With every launch of Murray, Oakland's $ 4.6 million investment is compromised, as are the Oklahoma Playoffs hopes.

"I can not tell you how bad it is," said Reilly. "The first time I saw him scrambling and taking a shot – I was waiting to watch this game without knowing what I would feel – but watching him get tackled made me beat him." heart a little faster. "

3. Murray has speed – Herzenberg, Dilfer and Riley call him each "sneaky", but that does not mean he has to be a typical guy of the leading men.

In 2018, Murray ranked second in home beating and slugging percentage, often hitting the cleanup. He could try to steal 40 goals a year in the majors, attack a serious power or:

"I think part of what made him such a high choice is his potential to do both," said Reilly. "Few guys every year in the repechage can run as he can, as well as a lot of power in his swing. So I think that's what ultimately prompted the A to decide that I heard other qualifiers – a generational-type athlete who can influence the game in an offensive way. "

Herzenberg assumes that Murray could have been safe whenever he was trying to fly to high school. And now, Reilly is waiting for Murray to get representatives of the legendary Rickey Henderson, legendary Oakland players, at the spring training.

4. You expect to see Murray's QB skills reflected in his throws. But his batting shows you even more.

According to a ESPN baseball monitoring report, Murray High School "has a great speed of shot, and its swing trajectory is good once it's started playing, but there's still a lot of movement before that point , especially in its lower half, which unbalances it at the moment of contact. "

"His first year [at OU]I think he had more of a spread-like, slammed, advanced approach, "said Reilly. "In his second year, he picked it up a bit, kicked it, gave it a little more fluidity and allowed his athletics to influence baseball."

This swing allows Murray to take advantage of his fundamental strength, especially his fast hips.

And those hips are the key to Murray's passer quality. Throwing a 50-meter football and a 250-foot baseball is not as easy to translate as it sounds.

Murray said L & # 39; Oklahoman"I can throw a football all day and my arm does not get tired," said Murray. "If I throw a baseball over a certain amount of time, it'll get a little sore."

"I think you're starting to look at his body type," Roth said. "It's clearly not 6'4 with a gigantic mount that will go all day like Warren Moon or Drew Bledsoe. You start there: well, he has a lot of juice on the ball, where is he generating all the strength?

"We have a phrase that we use all the time at Elite 11, and its ground force is equal to its rotational force. I think he has a lot. If you think of a baseball player when he is swinging, and how he generates the force with the stick or when he generates the force even when throwing, it's the same as a quarterback. "

Make this perfect pitch:

Murray did not have the space, but he did not have to. Dilfer says that the ball's excellent spinners do not really work – they make more punch. He says that the foot stride before assimilating power is a myth of coaching.

"[For a right-handed QB], the right hip has a lot to do with it, "said Dilfer." There are guys arming the ball, and there are guys [where] this right hip generates a little rotation and their arm follows, "Murray being the last.

"The guy where the right hip pulls efficiently, these guys tend to be very consistent and can translate any type of throw. Brett Favre is a good example. Drew Bledsoe is a good example, Tony Romo is a good example. Drew Brees is a great example, where you can just watch them and their arm does very little. Aaron Rodgers is a great example, Dan Marino.

"Their arm does very little. Their right hip does most of the work. "

Rodgers takes this to the extreme, sometimes jumping from his foot before. This shows that true power is not in stride.

What Dilfer and Roth saw Murray at the age of 16 was what they saw at OR, and it was on Riley that he wanted to control the thrower.

5. Murray can play the quarterback as a separate player or as a shortstop … because he has excelled at all three.

Murray's projection motion does not waste the movement. It's a credit to Kyler's father, Kevin, who, says Dilfer, would have taught Kyler some things when he was young and that many QB coaches did not understand at the time.

Like his father, Kyler went to Texas A & M and was selected by an MLB team. But father and son had different paths.

Kyler was transferred to the organizational unit and was drafted after, choosing not to be selected at the end of high school. Kevin was recruited by the Brewers after high school, received his $ 35,000 signing bonus, left baseball 10 weeks later and signed up for A & M, sparking a legal battle against Milwaukee. He was breaking records and leading the Aggies to two conference titles, but he never achieved the expected success because of an injury. Now he runs a QB Academy in Texas.

The baseball throw has an arm longer than football. Player throws do not need to be as fast as those in the center or the infield. But Kyler played short stops in high school before his injury forced him to play DH as a senior. He would also play in the fields at College Station. So, his arm is fast, both as QB and as a field player.

"For a player, I think that consistency and repeatability are more important than center players, because a middle player will have to throw it from different angles and be able to run and lose balance and directions, Said Herzenberg. "While a player is usually able to stand up, balance and throw accurately."

Murray can do both, in both sports.

In some quarterback halls across the country, players are encouraged to emulate mid-level players when they launch screens, as if they were lighting up two duplicate players. Murray does it with a handgun.

OR do not teach it that way, but Riley sees the overlap:

"I think it probably falls into the category of things he's done a lot in football, things he's done a lot in baseball, and every sport has added a profit or every sport has probably helped the sport." Another one a little further, I think it comes down to hand-eye coordination. "

Where a lot of baseball players are wrong when playing the quarterback takes too long to throw. The pitchers have all the time they want, while the quarterbacks have a split second before being hit by linemen 300 pounds.

A long motion QB is ineffective and can lead to disaster. The pitchers that play QB tend to have a long stride. The pitchers often push the ball away in the delivery, while the effective quarterbacks elbows farther than the ball. Launchers may have a dramatic glove arm thrust, while quarterbacks limit movement in their non-throwing hands. And pitchers generate strength downhill from a mound.

"You see a lot of these liquidation motions," Roth said of the throwers. "For me, it's when you're really long in your release. This happens all the time to baseball guys because they are long. It is the beauty of their liberation. How many pictures of Clayton Kershaw do we like, Zack Grienke, is it perfect?

"Now, stops and players from different positions, they quickly get the ball back," Roth said. "Take it out of the glove, take out the ball. It's different. "

6. One wonders about the strength of Murray's arms in baseball.

A scouting report America's baseball says Murray "shows an arm 30 right now [the low end of the 20-80 scale]but he does not work for baseball because he is muscular for football. "

Skip Johnson, the Oklahoma baseball coach, explained further.

"He did not take any ground with us last year," said Johnson. "He's going to get better by throwing a baseball, the more he does it – we did not think it was a big deal because he had thrown the football so much.

"But he was not drafted for his throwing arm, he's going because he can run and he can hit."

The placement of the ball is as important for an outside player as for a quarter. A ball thrown slightly behind a receiver may mean an unfinished one. A ball thrown slightly over the head of an infielder may mean that the runner is safe.

"You look at a guy like Aaron Judge or other guys from the Major League with very good arm strength," Herzenberg said. "The ball is wearing. It looks like it's going to start flowing and it stays in place. They generate a lot of backspin, so there is a natural element in this trajectory. "

Reilly concedes that Murray's arm is a work in progress, but that in the center, throwing is a secondary skill. The catch is primary.

"I would say that the arm action for the typical player is a little longer [than a QB’s], a little more relaxed simply because the weight of the ball has less impact on your arm action, being a five-ounce bullet, "said Reilly. "I think everyone knows he has the strength of his arms because you can see him throwing a 60- or 70-yard football. Everyone can not wait to see what happens when they get full-time baseball, make it bigger and relax. "

7. Murray understands just how to use his body and how playing different sports can improve his performance in each.

"I think the biggest postponement is the ability to control your body," said Dilfer. "I think the advantage of playing lacrosse or baseball or playing golf, and that is tantamount to perfecting his art as a quarterback, is that you understand kinetic sequencing. Of course, your body is learning to line up instead of being segmented. People who struggle athletically are segmented. Their body moves at different times, I guess that's the way to say it. Their bodies do not flow together. "

Josh Rosen has been ridiculed for his past tennis, but no sport asks his athletes to generate a rotating force more often. Whenever Rosen struck a forehand, he twisted his body. Dilfer even says the movements in a defensive The position in the basketball is reflected in the quarterback.

"When you know how to chain and pull your hips, the biggest thing the quarterbacks do is wow, I'm not fully armed," said Roth. "And from the moment they start using their land force, their rotational force is comparable to that of another player. The ball ends better. There are more revolutions on the ball because you use your body. It's like a golfer. How, for example, does a golfer who weighs 120 pounds run 300 yards? It's the couple, their hips. "

"If you're fast there, you can actually hold it a little longer," said Dilfer. "You can wait for people to get closer to you. There are many things you can do if you are fast, from the moment your brain says to throw it when it comes off your fingers. "

8. The key for any multi-sport athlete is to manage these similar skills in different ways, but this is about to change for Murray.

With the overlap of the dual sport, the trends that an athlete needs to flush out of his brain are more mental than physical. Herzenberg gave this example of a two sports athlete with whom he played in high school:

"I remember making a comment between games that he did not know how to turn on. He was mentally exhausted in the first game and baseball was a lot more complex mentally. Football goes, go, go, go, bang, bang for a few hours. We can rest and prepare for the next game on Saturday. In baseball, you play an extra round Monday night and you stay at midnight. You have to wake up on Tuesday and play another game. "

Fortunately, Murray has practiced many sports for most of his life. When he shows up for spring training a few weeks after the bowl game, it's not like he's going to ask how to hold a bat. For once, he will only be able to focus on one set of skills.

"Hey, the defense is 3-4 and linebackers are going to blitz. I have to get ready for that and call audibly, "said Herzenberg. "My landlord can take it and I can throw a screen thoroughly. It's really different than sitting on a curved ball or judging a stolen ball.

"Playing the quarter at Kyler is really difficult. Hitting a baseball is really difficult, but it's totally different. Ability and intelligence are really important for both perspectives, as long as you can use them in different directions. "

9. Baseball comes later. 2018 is for football for the last time.

"It's probably a lot less than people outside would think," Riley said. "More than anything, proud of him, what he did and what he was able to do in baseball. It's exciting for him and his family. We had a lot of fun with him, we're happy for him, but as I said – especially right now, it's the furthest thing from any mind. "

The monitored QB run of the A during the summer. They took the gamble of choosing Murray at age 9, hoping he would reach his cap, because talent growth is much cheaper than buying it in the free agent market.

"There is a floor and a ceiling, and you are just trying to weigh the risk and reward of everyone," said Herzenberg. "It's the economy. It's like betting on stocks on Wall Street. Kyler Murray is the emerging startup of the emerging markets, where it could touch and I could become a multimillionaire, or it could fail. Are you ready to take that risk? "

Reilly might have had a slightly different reason to pay special attention to who would start on the OU – he went on to compete with the state of Oklahoma.

"[Murray] was certainly, I would say, earlier born and earlier raised, "said Reilly. "Once he discovered I was a cowboy, he did not hesitate to talk about his garbage. I think the whole Sooner nation would be proud to hear it. And in my position, I was about to listen to what he had to say and politely disagree. "

2018 is Murray's promise, which allows him to relegate his potential to the maximum. The five-star time at A & M was largely forgettable and ended with a transfer. It seemed like a derailed career, but the second wind in Oklahoma was the gale force.

He had driven Allen to three state championships and a 42-0 record. He is the first player to play in both Under Armor football. and baseball games. He is the son of a talented double sports athlete and nephew of a Major League champion (Calvin Murray), and he is now up to the bill.

"This guy could change an organization," said Herzenberg. "This guy, if he clicks, he'll be an All-Star several times."

"The last thing I'll say about Kyler," said Dilfer. "He's the biggest high school quarterback to have played, so that should not be a surprise." He never lost to Texas [5 and] 6A, and it was not just because he was playing for a busy team.

"During all my years in this field, I would not say the best prospect, because there are others, but in terms of watching games, watching it compete and seeing it win, I can not think of no one. "