In his starting quarterback debut for the Texas Longhorns, redshirt freshman from Inglewood, California No. 6 Maalik Murphy threw his first touchdown pass.
Texas was in their third drive of the game. The first two drives resulted in a punt and an interception thrown by Murphy. Not an ideal start for the much anticipated Murphy who had shown before his throwing ability when he connected with a laser beam for an arm.
You could sense Murphy was a little nervous and justifiably so. It’s one thing to come into a game in the fourth quarter and your team is already winning versus you being QB1 and having the responsibility of leading the team to victory.
Murphy threw an interception on the second drive that had to rattle him, but he never let it show and the next drive Murphy threw a deep ball 30-yards to Adonai Mitchell in the end zone putting Texas on the scoreboard first.
It showed Murphy’s resilience and composer to not let the interception affect his play.
This was a big moment for Murphy and we wondered what went through his mind after he saw Mitchell catch the ball and the referee raise their arms to make it official: TOUCHDOWN.
During the post game player interviews we asked Murphy what was going through his mind.
Murphy threw 25 passes with 16 connecting for 170-yards and two touchdowns. Both of Murphy’s touchdowns landed with Adonai Mitchell. Texas beat BYU 35-6. Head coach Steve Sarkisian said in his Monday morning press conference that Murphy would be the starting quarterback against No. 25 Kansas State on Nov. 4 at DKR with an 11AM kickoff.
Photo Gallery
Here are some photos we captured of the play. Our sports photographer Don Bender had the perfect photo of Murhpy as he launched the ball, and we capture one from the press box.
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