Maalik Murphy is a quarterback at Oregon State who has played in 2 of Oregon State's 8 games this season, most recently Oct 10.
Oregon State is 5-3.
As of
The Murphy era in Corvallis started with a seven-figure bet and the kind of arm beat writers called NFL-caliber — velocity, touch on deep outs, the whole tape-room fantasy. Then 2025 happened. He threw 9 touchdowns against 8 interceptions, completed just 58% of his passes, and went 1-7 as a starter before getting benched in the Lafayette game and ceding QB1. The discourse has been brutal but not unkind: the local read is that he "pressed too much," that the size and arm are real and the room around him wasn't. That's the perception-reality split in a sentence — the eye test still sees a future pro, the play-by-play sees a passer who ranked in the 40th percentile in EPA per dropback and the 20th in accuracy.
The twist is that he came back anyway. New head coach JaMarcus Shephard, an offense-first hire whose attack "is going to throw and keep pressing," arrives with a clean slate, and Murphy is the lone returning quarterback in a three-man battle with Braden Atkinson and Brady Jones. Reporting out of spring has him with a leg up — "primed to open the season as Oregon State's starter once again" — but Shephard has said flatly he won't name a starter until the end of fall camp. So the most interesting QB room in the Pac-12's rebuild belongs to a guy who's already lost the job once.
The one number that travels with him: 81st percentile ball security. For all the noise, Murphy didn't give the ball away cheaply — the interceptions were a volume-and-pressure story, not a recklessness one. The forward stake is simple and merciless. Murphy has the best arm in the building and a coach built to use it. The only thing standing between him and a redemption season is the same thing that's haunted him all along: turning the throws into points before the leash snaps again.
Update (Nov. 2, 2026): Murphy is not the starter. Braden Atkinson has thrown for 2,956 yards and 25 touchdowns through eight games, and Oregon State is 5-3. Murphy shows up in the box score for two of those games, the 52-17 win over Montana and the 66-14 win over San Diego State, with 81 passing yards and one touchdown pass. He also caught a 2-yard touchdown pass against San Diego State.
Sources
Play style
Murphy plays like an arm in search of a system. The pocket trait that pops is paradoxical: he held up under pressure better than most, landing in the 80th percentile for sack rate vs FBS QBs (n=258) — but the same patience curdles into hesitation, and the efficiency cratered to the 40th percentile in EPA per dropback. His accuracy is the open wound: 20th percentile completion rate, scattershot on a stick that should be a strength. He pushes the ball with a healthy 50th-percentile explosive-pass rate and a downfield-leaning game, but the touchdown rate (20th pct) never followed. The redeeming trait is care with the football — a bottom-quartile raw interception rate by percentile that the descriptor model reads as genuine ball security once you adjust for how often he was throwing under duress. The arm is a weapon; the operating system around it has yet to boot.
Closest statistical matches, adjusted for opponent strength.
Swipe the table sideways for more columns.
| Season | Team | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Oregon State | 11 | 12 | 91.7% | 81 | 6.8 | 1 | 0 | 175.9 | -- |
| 2025 | Oregon State | 160 | 276 | 58.0% | 1,802 | 6.5 | 9 | 8 | 117.8 | 53 |
| 2024 | Duke | 254 | 421 | 60.3% | 2,932 | 7.0 | 26 | 12 | 133.5 | 56 |
| 2023 | Texas | 40 | 71 | 56.3% | 477 | 6.7 | 3 | 3 | 118.3 | -- |
| Career | 465 | 780 | 59.6% | 5,292 | 6.8 | 39 | 23 | 127.2 | 55 |
| Season | Team | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Oregon State | 1 | −4 | −4.0 | 0 | -- |
| 2025 | Oregon State | 23 | −58 | −2.5 | 1 | 11 |
| 2024 | Duke | 19 | −79 | −4.2 | 2 | 8 |
| 2023 | Texas | 1 | −18 | −18.0 | 0 | -- |
| Career | 44 | −159 | −3.6 | 3 | 11 |
Game log · Week-by-week
2026 season · 2 games
Swipe the table sideways for more columns.
| Wk | Opp | CMP/ATT | YDS | TD | INT | YPA | QBR | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 3 | W 52-17vs Montana | 3/4 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 7.0 | 21.9 | |
| Wk 6 | W 66-14vs San Diego State | 8/8 | 53 | 1 | 0 | 6.6 | 46.5 | Season-high 53 yds |
| Total | 11/12 | 81 | 1 | 0 | 6.8 | — |
Week 6 · 2026
W 66-14
53 yds · 1 TD · 0 INT · QBR 46.5
Dominant 52-point win at home against San Diego State.
With B. Atkinson — 409 yds · 5 TD · 0 INT · QBR 96.6 · J. Legree — 10 rec · 191 yds · 3 TD
The plays that mattered most
| Stat | His | Nation | Pac-12 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passing yards | 81 | 250th of 370 | 14th of 21 |
| Yards an attempt | 6.8 | Not ranked | Not ranked |
| Touchdown passes | 1 | T-202nd of 370 | T-14th of 21 |
| Passer rating | 175.9 | Not ranked | Not ranked |
| Completion percentage | 91.7 | Not ranked | Not ranked |
| Rushing yards | -4 | T-317th of 370 | 20th of 21 |
| Rushing touchdowns | 0 | — | — |
Counting stats rank all FBS quarterbacks with a pass attempt; the rates rank those with at least 10 attempts a game. He has 12 attempts of the 80 needed after 8 games, so the rates are not ranked.
| Rk | Quarterback | Yards | TD | INT | Att | Y/A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brad Jackson | 1,933 | 18 | 5 | 232 | 8.3 |
| 2 | Maddux Madsen | 1,681 | 15 | 1 | 222 | 7.6 |
| 3 | Jayden Mandal | 1,595 | 10 | 2 | 212 | 7.5 |
| 4 | Hauss Hejny | 1,138 | 14 | 2 | 134 | 8.5 |
| 5 | Grady Brosterhous | 1,120 | 7 | 6 | 178 | 6.3 |
| 6 | Caden Pinnick | 952 | 3 | 5 | 178 | 5.3 |
| 7 | Ksaan Farrar | 943 | 5 | 2 | 143 | 6.6 |
| 8 | Jayden Denegal | 896 | 7 | 5 | 150 | 6.0 |
| 9 | Owen Eshelman | 779 | 2 | 3 | 131 | 5.9 |
| 10 | Stone Saunders | 552 | 2 | 3 | 69 | 8.0 |
| 11 | McCae Hillstead | 398 | 3 | 4 | 59 | 6.7 |
| 12 | Max Cutforth | 131 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 10.1 |
| 13 | Gavin Parkhurst | 114 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 12.7 |
| 14 | Maalik Murphy | 81 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 6.8 |
| 15 | Khristian Martin | 71 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 17.8 |
| 16 | Darius Curry | 70 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 8.8 |
| 17 | Draiden Trudeau | 66 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 4.7 |
| 18 | Anthony Garcia | 50 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 25.0 |
| 19 | Bert Emanuel Jr. | 9 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4.5 |
| 20 | Brady Jones | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1.7 |
| 21 | Julian Dugger | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.0 |
Sorted by passing yards. Gray: under 10 attempts a game, so not ranked on yards an attempt.
Conference ranks count every player in the conference with a row in that stat, any position. Career ranks count current FBS players, from the games in our log.
Thomas and Milbourn saw 7 of the 12 charted throws.
| Receiver | Targets, caught | Targets | Catches | Yards | Throw depth | After catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cynai Thomas | 5 | 5 | 43 | 6.6 | 2.0 | |
| Gabe Milbourn | 2 | 2 | 23 | 2.0 | 9.5 | |
| Eddie Freauff | 1 | 1 | 7 | 2.0 | 5.0 | |
| Malachi Durant | 1 | 1 | 7 | 6.0 | 1.0 | |
| Kourdey Glass | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 1.0 | |
| 2 others | 2 | 1 | 0 | 13.0 | 2.0 |
Play by play: 12 passes, 11 caught, 81 yards. Throw depth: average air yards per target. After catch: average yards after the catch per catch. Bar: targets; the blue part was caught.
Splits
Per-game splits
Through 2 games: 40.5 YDS/g, 0.5 TD/g, 6.8 YPA, 0.0 INT/g — splits start at 3 games.
Supporting cast · Scheme
Staff and system around the player
Head Coach
JaMarcus Shephard
Pass share
67.7%
614 pass / 293 run
Plays / game
113.4
8 games
Scheme: Pass-heavy, fast tempo.
| Maalik Murphy | Threw in 2 of 8 games · 11 of 12, 81 yds, 1 TD, 0 INT · 6.8 yards an attempt on 12 attempts · ran for -4 yds, 0 TD |
| Brady Jones | Threw in 2 of 8 games · 1 of 3, 5 yds, 0 TD, 0 INT · 1.7 yards an attempt on 3 attempts · ran for 20 yds, 0 TD |
Box score. Every quarterback on the team who has thrown a pass this season.
Player standing · 2026
Fewer passes and runs a game than most FBS quarterbacks who play every week.
2026 is in progress.
Played for three programs.
Coaching lineage · 2022–2026
5 coachesPlayed for 5 head coaches at 3 schools: Steve Sarkisian, Manny Diaz, Trent Bray, Robb Akey and JaMarcus Shephard.
