Former NFL star expected to pass on Penn State assistant opening

Less than 24 hours after initially being reported as a candidate to become the next running backs coach of the Penn State football program, DeMarco Murray will stay in Norman. According to reports from On3’s Pete Nakos on Wednesday, the former NFL star has decided to remain at his alma mater, Oklahoma.

“The expectation is DeMarco Murray will stay at Oklahoma,” Nakos wrote on X. “He’s developed a rapport with new OC Ben Arbuckle.”

The expectation is DeMarco Murray will stay at Oklahoma, multiple sources tell @On3sports. He's developed a rapport with new OC Ben Arbuckle.

Penn State made a strong pitch to Murray, but he ultimately decided to stay in Norman.

Intel: https://t.co/m2vg2xrV1u https://t.co/rBxUTv6L0Q

— Pete Nakos (@PeteNakos_) February 12, 2025

On Tuesday night, reports surfaced indicating that the Nittany Lions had contacted Murray multiple times over the last few days regarding its recently opened assistant coach role. After a seven-year NFL career, Murray returned to Oklahoma, where he starred as a player, to coach the running backs in 2020.

Even when Murray’s name was in the mix, perhaps the most logical hire for James Franklin and Penn State football remained former Temple head coach Stan Drayton. The 31-year coaching veteran is currently out of a job, fired in November after going 9-25 over three seasons with the Owls.

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Drayton has experience in the NFL and at major college programs across the country, most recently at Texas. Someone who has been around the block is exactly who Franklin is looking for as he dives into his second coaching search of the offseason.

“There’s a list that’s probably not as deep as people think of candidates that can come to Penn State,” Franklin said on Tuesday. “And in hiring, in my mind, it’s about how are you going to get the return on your investment. What I mean by that is, there’s some young guys that you can hire that are on an upward trajectory, are going to have really good careers, but you may not get the return on your investment until year two. And then there’s other guys that are much more seasoned, but you want to make sure that they haven’t gotten to the point of their career where their career starting to decline and go in the opposite direction.

“So you kind of find that sweet spot of a guy that’s got enough experience, both in coaching and in recruiting at this level, and that we’re going to get the return on our investment quickly. Because we’re just not at a point as a program to come in and have to wait a year or two while we’re still developing somebody.

“So that’s the hard part of finding that sweet spot of they got enough experience that there’s they’re still trending, from a coaching and from a recruiting perspective, but not too much that maybe they’re on the downward trend of their career as well, and you’re trying to kind of balance all those things.”

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