Murphy Gets Small Taste of College Football

With COVID-19 running rampant on the spring sports world, it’s not just the spring sports that were affected. Caleb Murphy graduated from West Washington early to make the transition to Indiana University and participate in spring football. But with school and sports being put on hold, it put a damper on those plans to an extent.

Murphy left West Washington in hops of getting in several weeks of practice in the spring, but instead only got weight lifting, conditioning, and four actual practices in before the spring semester and practice was canceled.

The goal of going to college early was to get in some extra work with the team before the fall season. With the spring semester getting cut short Murphy admitted he was disappointed. “It sucked I’m not going to lie. Everybody seems to have had something taken from them with the Corona virus. I was still able to workout and stuff like that. But the whole reason I went up there to try and get an advantage. It sucks, but on the bright side I was able to workout and meet the team so that was good.”

In the few practices he did get though, he said it was great. “The pace is a lot different. Seeing and hearing seeing things at the college level was big. It was a learning curve for sure. I only had four practices so I didn’t get a whole lot of chances.”

It of course wasn’t just a transition to playing college sports. Murphy also had to get used to a college class schedule. He admitted that transition went smoothly. “It went really well. It was a bit of a transition getting used to college classes, along with balancing workouts with school, but I thought it went well.”

Murphy also had to adjust to having a new coach. His position coach Mark Hagen left IU to take the same position at the University of Texas. Although it wasn’t ideal he said he understood why he took the job to be closer to his family. But he said his new coach is unbelievable and he is super smart and it’s been great getting to know him.

In the meantime before the fall and the hopeful return of football, Murphy has workouts he’s doing at home to keep himself ready and team meetings. “We got a new strength coach and he’s been sending out workouts to go guys, whether they have workout equipment or not. We’ve gotten dynamic workouts and things like that too so those have been good…We’ve had position meetings, and team meetings. And those have been important too.”

So like the rest of us Murphy is waiting for word on when/if football will resume in the fall. Things are up in the air he said, but the team is following guidelines. Every team in the Big 10 has to get the same amount of practices he added.

On Wednesday the University announced plans to have athletes return to campus in groups starting on June 15, signaling a hopeful return for football.