College football podcast: How Kyler Murray broke the recruiting mold for quarterbacks

As the NFL Combine picks Murray apart, we review his impact on the college game

When Kyler Murray was named to be one of the 32 five-star prospects in the class of 2015, the decision was somewhat controversial. 

247Sports only selects 32 five-star prospects for each recruiting class, the idea being that the exclusive recognition comes with a projection of being a first round pick in the NFL Draft. Murray was an elite high school talent, one of the most successful quarterbacks in Texas history, but his height, at just 5-foot-10, fell short of the standard usually applied to first round picks. 

That is until Murray came along. 

"Kyle Murray was a mold breaker for us," Barton Simmons explained in this week's edition of the Cover 3 Podcast. "We ranked him No. 30 in the country, one of the last five-stars. It was a tough debate to have, because at that point we understood with that ranking that he's not a prototypical first round NFL Draft pick from a size standpoint." 

As national director of scouting for 247Sports, Simmons and his colleagues have these debates every year and they settled on the idea that if there was ever to be an undersized quarterback that could make it to the league, it was probably Murray. 

Evidence to the ways that quarterback scouting lies in the immediate future with the 2020 recruiting class. 

"This year, there's a kid in the 2020 class, No. 1 quarterback, named Bryce Young out of California," Simmons said. "He's 6-foot and maybe a hair under, and we've got him No. 16 in the country right now. It's a different game. 

"My ideal quarterback is no longer the 6-foot-6 gunslinger that stands in the pocket and picks people apart. It's now the 6-2, athletic dual threat quarterback that use his legs, throw from outside the pocket and navigate chaos. That's just where the game is going."

Murray is not alone in changing the expectations for the size of elite quarterbacks. Fellow Oklahoma and Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield certainly had a big role in that transformation of thought, as did Russell Wilson and Drew Brees before them. But as the NFL Combine continues to nitpick over inches and seconds, know that the trend is only going to continue to buck the established conventions as long as coaches are willing to embrace the modern game.