DeMarco Murray outflanks his old boss as top RB Taylor Tatum picks Oklahoma
Seventeen years after he left USC at the altar on his own commitment day, DeMarco Murray is still a painful thorn in the Trojans’ side.
And this time, he can thank one Skip Johnson for a metaphorical alley-oop in the process.
The Sooners have picked up a commitment from four-star 2024 running back Taylor Tatum, the No. 48 overall player and No. 3 RB in the nation in the Rivals rankings. The Longview (Texas) native will play both football and baseball in Norman, and he immediately becomes the highest-ranked commit in Oklahoma’s class.
In recent weeks, Tatum’s recruitment had morphed into the inaugural high-profile recruiting battle between Lincoln Riley and his former employer. When Riley left Oklahoma for USC in November 2021, he first made an effort to hire Murray as his new running backs coach, but that interest was met with no reciprocation. The Trojans then tried to flip four-star back Jovantae Barnes, who at the time was silently committed to the Sooners in the 2022 class. However, Murray was able to withstand the push and keep Barnes locked in with Oklahoma. However, in the nearly two years since, Oklahoma and USC had yet to go mano-a-mano for one of the nation’s top recruits.
That changed with Tatum, a 5-foot-11, 200-pound dynamo whose only official visits were to Oklahoma and USC. He made the trip out to Southern California for an OV on June 2-4, after which sources disclosed to OUInsider that he had given the Trojans a silent pledge. Nevertheless, Tatum honored his plans to take a June 16-18 official visit to OU.
Once the Sooners got Tatum to Norman for the visit, they wasted no time in ensuring that he wouldn’t matriculate at USC. Murray and the football staff, aided by quarterback commit Michael Hawkins, saw their pitch hit home. Meanwhile, Johnson and the baseball staff helped sell Tatum on a two-sport vision that would allow him to pursue his dreams on both the gridiron and the diamond, not unlike the path taken by former Heisman Trophy winner and first-round MLB draft pick Kyler Murray. Within 48 hours of the official visit’s conclusion, it had become apparent that Oklahoma sat in the catbird seat with Tatum.
A month later, a wild recruitment process is officially in the books, and Tatum is indeed a Sooner. The Rivals FutureCast favored Texas A&M early in the spring, but Michigan soon emerged as the odds-on favorite to land Tatum, and the Wolverines’ lead held for some time. That changed when official visit season rolled around, and the USC/Oklahoma battle began to brew. Upon leaving Norman, Tatum actually cancelled a Michigan OV that had been set for June 21-23, leaving little to the imagination as to where he would commit.
Tatum is the fifteenth total pledge of the Sooners’ 2024 class and the second running back, joining three-star Midwest City (Okla.) product Xavier Robinson. Moreover, depending on the fluctuation of the rankings over the final six months of the recruiting cycle, Tatum has the chance to become the Sooners’ first five-star signee at the running back position since Joe Mixon in 2014. He is already the highest-ranked commit of DeMarco Murray’s tenure as Oklahoma running backs coach, which now spans four recruiting classes.
Stay tuned to OUInsider.com for additional coverage of Tatum’s commitment, including his interview on the decision with Rivals national recruiting analyst Cole Patterson.