The NCAA announced punishments on Tuesday for recruiting violations committed by the Oklahoma football program, including a one-game suspension for DeMarco Murray, the Sooners running backs coach and former NFL All-Pro, for contacting recruits prior to permissible contact periods. No other suspensions were handed down.
According to an agreement released by the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions, Murray impermissibly contacted 17 prospects over 16 months, ranging from Dec. 2021 to April 2023, including 65 impermissible phone calls and 36 impermissible text messages. Oklahoma football discovered and self-reported the recruiting violations to the NCAA in August 2023, and self-imposed recruiting penalties on Murray and the football staff dating back to spring 2023, including a reduction of recruiting evaluation days and recruiting calls.
A collaborative investigation by the NCAA’s enforcement staff and Oklahoma found that even though some of the recruiting infractions violated the NCAA’s head coach responsibility rules, Sooners coach Brent Venables was not personally involved in the violations and “promoted an atmosphere of compliance” within the program. Murray claimed he was not aware a COVID-19 waiver of recruiting contact rules had expired, but the investigation determined Oklahoma had properly educated its football coaches on the rule changes. The end result of the investigation were agreed-upon Level II mitigated penalties for Oklahoma football, Venables and Murray, but no suspension for Venables.
In addition to Oklahoma’s previous self-imposed punishments and Murray’s one-game suspension, the NCAA’s Level II penalties include no unofficial recruiting visits for Oklahoma for the season opener Friday against Temple, as well as a three-week ban on recruiting phone calls and texts from Dec. 8, 2024, to March 31, 2025.
The NCAA also announced Level I infractions against the Sooners track-and-field program and former head coach Tim Langford, who directed a female track-and-field athlete to provide some of her scholarship funds to a pair of male track-and-field athletes.
Langford, who was fired in Nov. 2023, received a four-year show-cause from the NCAA, and Oklahoma must vacate all track-and-field records involving the athletes who have since been deemed ineligible for improper benefits. Oklahoma also self-imposed a 0.1 scholarship reduction in men’s track and field for the 2023-24 season.
As a result of the Level I and Level II penalties, Oklahoma athletics will serve one year of probation and a $5,000 fine.
“The University discovered the violations through its monitoring systems and investigated, reported, and addressed the matters promptly and appropriately,” an athletic department spokesman said. “The violations in question were limited to the actions of a coach who is no longer employed by the University and a current assistant coach. OU worked with the NCAA to manage the review and reach a conclusion, and penalties imposed by the University are already in effect.”
(Photo: Emil Lippe / Getty Images)
