Maalik Murphy on Oregon State's Cal Loss: 'We Left A Lot on the Table'

Oregon State went down 34-15 in their season-opening loss against the Cal Bears on Saturday. The Beavers fell into a 14-0 hole early and could not find their footing offensively until it was too late.

In his first game as Oregon State's starting quarterback, Duke transfer Maalik Murphy completed 21 passes on 33 attempts for 244 yards and an interception, also rushing five times for 15 yards and a touchdown.

Oregon State's rushing attack, which was the strongest part of their offense in 2024, finished with just 65 yards in the loss. Oregon State's two turnovers, Murphy's interception and a fumble by Bryce Caufield, also played a major role as those directly led to ten of Cal's points in the 19-point loss.

Murphy was critical of his own performance following the game.

"I feel like I got to do more on offense, and not even just like playing wise. I got to be better, just being more coachable. Being there for my teammates, creating more plays," Murphy noted. "We left a lot on the table. Getting the ball in the paint. You know, it's hard to win the game when you don't score points. So, I got to do a better job of of keeping the ball moving forward and not giving them the ball back when our defense just came off the field."

Murphy further noted a need for improvement in his communication with his receivers if the team hopes to get in the win column soon.

"I think we got to improve on everything, not just communication. But of course, definitely that's one thing that we can improve on is communication. And you know, I got to be better. Giving them the right signals, giving them the the right assignments, and they got to do a great job of of hearing it all and doing their job. I got to do my job, they got to do their job. And um you know I feel like if if we do that at a high level, things wouldn't have went how they did tonight."

Despite the loss, Murphy stated his confidence in his team's ability to learn from the experience and move forward.

I don't think it's a step back. It's just another another thing to watch, another thing to go over, and another thing to get better from. It's our first game. It's our first real real opponent other than playing our defense. So of course we got things to improve on. We got things to look at and work on moving forward for our next opponent next Saturday."

The Beavers will try to get things back on track on Saturday, September 6 against the Fresno State Bulldogs.