Once again, Brent Venables finds himself without another key piece of his staff. This is the third staff departure since the 2025 season wrapped. Joe Jon Finley and Jay Valai are both gone. And now DeMarco Murray is reportedly headed to the Kansas City Chiefs to become their RBs coach under Andy Reid. But as an OU insider made it clear, this one weighed on Murray. 

“This was not an easy decision for Murray, I’m told,” George Stoia wrote on X on February 11. “He has been offered big jobs before and never envisioned leaving OU. But this was an opportunity he did not feel he could turn down. The chance to learn under Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy was too much to pass up.”

DeMarco Murray has had chances before. On college football’s side, Ohio State tried to make him the highest-paid RB coach in college football while Penn State pushed hard. In the NFL, the Cowboys and Raiders called. But he stayed put with Brent Venables in Norman through it all. This time, though, it’s different. It’s the 4x Super Bowl champs with some of the top names in the NFL playing and coaching in it.

The chance to learn under Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy and to do it with a franchise QB like Patrick Mahomes in the building, this is a dream for many. But DeMarco Murray is nothing short of deserving. He is one of the greatest RBs in Oklahoma history with more than 3,600 rushing yards and 50 TDs. He was a 3x All-Big 12, and he went to the NFL and won Offensive Player of the Year in 2014 after leading the league in rushing. 

As a coach, DeMarco Murray has been a fixture at Oklahoma since 2020. When Lincoln Riley left for USC and Brent Venables walked in, he stayed. He helped Oklahoma lead the Big 12 in rushing in 2022, averaging 219.4 yards per game in Venables’ first season. In 2023, the Sooners averaged 41.7 points and 507 total yards per game, and that run game was the engine.

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Now, to be fair, things dropped as the move to the SEC exposed some cracks. In their first year in 2024, Oklahoma finished 11th in the conference in rushing at 155 yards per game. Then it fell to 118 in 2025. Still, NFL teams clearly haven’t forgotten who DeMarco Murray is, and Kansas City is benefiting from it. 

DeMarco Murray lands his first NFL job with Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs

DeMarco Murray is joining a Chiefs franchise that’s been the gold standard of this era. They’ve had three Super Bowls since 2019, led by 3x Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes. They were cruising on an 11-year playoff streak until it broke this past season. 2025 was ugly with a 6-11 finish. It’s their first missed playoffs since 2014, and they went bottom 10 in rushing yards per game. That’s why RBs coach Todd Pinkston had to go. 

But here’s a fact for DeMarco Murray. It might be a while before he can share the field with the QB. Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL late in the season so he’s likely to miss significant time in 2026. That means Kansas City may need to lean on the run game more than at any point in the Mahomes era. And Andy Reid is trusting his presence to get the job done. 

From DeMarco Murray’s perspective, this is a chance to prove himself on the biggest stage as a coach. And for Brent Venables, this departure hurts. Losing trusted assistants, especially former program icons, chips away at continuity. Still, sometimes the NFL comes calling. And when Andy Reid is on the other end of the line, even the most loyal Sooners have to listen. Temptation can be a powerful thing.