Best Maalik Murphy transfer portal destinations after leaving Texas football

Now that the 2023 college football regular season has come to a close, all eyes are on the transfer portal. Over 3,000 players have entered the transfer portal, including some big names. A majority of those big names have been quarterbacks, and some of those big names have already zeroed in on their next college football destinations. Duke’s Riley Leonard entered the transfer portal but has selected Notre Dame as the place to continue his football career. Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel has already announced his intention to transfer to the University of Oregon. Coastal Carolina’s Grayson McCall will transfer to North Carolina State.

Those three have chosen their new homes, but there are still plenty of other quarterbacks, like Washington State’s Cameron Ward, UCLA’s Dante Moore, and Ohio State’s Kyle McCord, who haven’t yet decided where they’re playing next. Now, another quarterback has entered the portal: Texas’ Maalik Murphy.

Something had to give at the University of Texas regarding their quarterback room. Maalik Murphy was an ESPN Top-300 recruit back in 2022, but had to wait his turn behind Quinn Ewers after Ewers transferred in from Ohio State. Waiting for his turn got more complicated once Arch Manning, the fifth overall prospect from the 2023 recruiting class, committed to the Longhorns. Now Murphy is in the portal looking for his shot at being a starter. He’ll get that somewhere. The question is where is the best spot for him to be that guy?

UCLA Bruins
The world knows that UCLA football needs a quarterback after Dante Moore, the second overall prospect in the 2023 recruiting class, announced his intention to transfer from UCLA football after a rocky freshman season. Ethan Garbers was UCLA football’s starter in the games that Moore did not start, and Garbers was mostly solid. He threw for 984 yards and nine touchdowns compared to just three interceptions with the majority of that production coming in five starts. That’s fine, but 664 of those yards and seven of those touchdowns came against three of the worst defenses in college football in USC, Colorado, and Stanford.

UCLA not only needs a quarterback, but they need someone who can be their guy for the next few seasons. Maalik Murphy can be that guy. Murphy still has three seasons of college eligibility and has starting experience. It doesn’t have a ton of starting experience, but Murphy started two games for Texas this season (against BYU and Kansas State) and helped the Longhorns win both games to make their run to the College Football Playoff possible. It hurt UCLA to see Dante Moore go, but Maalik Murphy, who is from Inglewood, California, would be a solid consolation prize for the Bruins

LSU Tigers

In addition to UCLA, the LSU Tigers football program is one of the teams that are interested in landing Maalik Murphy out of the transfer portal.

One could make the argument that no team has done more out of the transfer portal than LSU, especially at the quarterback position. Lincoln Riley did recruit three Heisman-winning quarterbacks out of the transfer portal while at Oklahoma (Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Jalen Hurts) and has already done that at USC with Caleb Williams (though he recruited Williams to Oklahoma), but LSU football has rich history with quarterbacks and the transfer portal itself. Joe Burrow transferred to Baton Rouge from Ohio State and not only won a Heisman but also a national championship. Jayden Daniels didn’t win a national championship but he did just win the Heisman and looks poised to become a first-round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft after being an afterthought in regards to the pros while at Arizona State.

The LSU football program is a place where promising quarterbacks can take a leap as a player. With an opening at the position, perhaps Maalik Murphy can be the next in line to make that jump in Baton Rouge. It’s hard to find a landing spot better than that.