Oklahoma Sooners face punishment during their first game of the 2024 season against Temple

The Oklahoma Sooners will face a punishment during their first game of the year, which is set to be played on Friday, against the Temple Owls. The NCAA put out an announcement that the Sooners football team, along with other parts of the athletic department, have committed some infractions that go against the rules.

On Friday, the Sooners are expected to be without assistant coach and former player DeMarco Murray.

Here is part of the very long statement that the NCAA put out regarding the infractions that the Oklahoma Sooners football team has committed.

Recruiting violations occurred in the Oklahoma football program when assistant coach DeMarco Murray impermissibly contacted prospects and their families prior to the permissible time period, according to an agreement released by the Division I Committee on Infractions. The school, Murray, and the enforcement staff agreed that the violations in the football program occurred when Murray impermissibly contacted 17 prospects over 16 months, including 65 impermissible phone calls and 36 impermissible text messages. Murray indicated that he was not aware that a COVID-19 waiver of recruiting contact rules had expired. During the investigation, the enforcement staff determined that the school had properly educated football coaches on the applicable recruiting rules and the timing of changes to them. Head coaches are presumed responsible for the actions of their staff, and as a result, Venables violated head coach responsibility rules. In this case, however, some of the violations occurred prior to rules changes effective in January 2023 that shifted head coach responsibility rules from a rebuttable presumption to automatic. Because Venables was not personally involved in the violations and demonstrated that he promoted an atmosphere of compliance and monitored his staff, Venables rebutted his presumed responsibility for some of the earlier violations. For the same reasons, the parties also agreed that a suspension penalty for Venables was not appropriate.

Having Murray be absent for the game certainly won't help, but it shouldn't be too much of a big deal. The Sooners should still win on Friday against the Owls.

Related: Five wildcard Sooners who could shift Oklahoma's first season heading into the SEC