CORVALLIS — In the lobby of the coaches’ offices at Valley Football Center, Oregon State quarterback Maalik Murphy and new defensive back signing Isaiah Houi were all smiles.
Head coach JaMarcus Shephard greeted them both with a loud voice and relentless, positive energy.
“I was just talking about you,” Shephard said to Houi as he dapped him up.
“Was just talking about you, too,” Shephard told Murphy before pointing at his Jordan sneakers. “You gotta chill with them ‘fits.”
Murphy laughed. It wasn’t fake or forced. All the tension from a disastrous 2025 season appeared lifted from his broad shoulders.
For all the uncertainty swirling around college football and the uphill battles the Beavers face at every turn, the vibes have visibly shifted in Corvallis.
The Oregonian/OregonLive sat down with Shephard on Monday for a wide-ranging interview, discussing everything from artificial intelligence to the transfer portal.
Below is a transcript of part one of that conversation, edited for length and clarity. Part two will publish on Wednesday.
Ryan Clarke: It’s obviously been a busy few weeks. How has your family adjusted to the move to Corvallis?
JaMarcus Shephard: I have just a super supportive family. My wife and our kids, they’re partly used to it, the moving around the country. At the same time, they have known that this has been a goal of mine for quite a while. And so, they are excited about how this is turning out. Coming out here to Corvallis, we were just overjoyed at just being in the smaller environment like this to give us the best chance to, honestly, stay even more connected as a family. I think this is really a great place to raise our family in this next phase of their lives. And the people have been really fantastic and accepting. I went to the rodeo the other day for New Year’s. I can definitely say I’d never been to one of those before. Had a couple in town invite us to come out there and just spend some time for New Year’s. So, folks have been super, super great in terms of receiving me and my family.
Have you been able to get out into the community much, check out some restaurants? Or has it been a lot of Uber Eats to the office?
(Laughs) You know, when I do eat — because oftentimes I’m forgetting to eat right now — Madison Sweezy, our director of football operations, she’s done a great job of just trying to keep me on top of eating. But I’ve gotten to a few restaurants. I’ve gone into those restaurants on the phone. And you know what? Didn’t even order anything. I did have a chance to eat at Murphy’s a couple times. And the owner there, he’s been outstanding. Every time I walk in, he’s very deliberate and intentional about making sure everything is being done in a first class manner. And with all of our recruits going over there, too, he’s been outstanding.
It seems like this transfer portal season has been about production over potential, focusing mostly on productive guys from the FCS level. What is the philosophy behind that?
I think that right now we just need to get some guys in here who love football. And how do you know somebody loves football? They play football. There’s just so many young people who, I don’t even know if they really love football if they’re transferring from this school to that school, to this school to that school, to not play, to not play, to sit and watch and just never play football. How much do you really love football? The things that I really love, I actually do them, you know? I love playing table tennis, so I play table tennis. Now, there’s some projections, and we’re bringing in a couple of them that I think prior relationships allowed us to make a decision on bringing them in. And so, it really did become exactly about that. We want to do a good job with guys who actually had production, but also lean into our relationships to make sure that we brought in a group of guys who go out there and can be competitive right away. There’s limitations in terms of who you can bring into the program, knowing that some of these schools are willing to pay at a rate that, quite frankly, a little bit ridiculous. Some of the numbers and things that I’ve heard from players, coaches, agents, and even other college coaches are ridiculous. We’re gonna keep it simple here, and we’re gonna make sure that we give as many people on our roster as possible the opportunity to benefit from what we can do. But we’re also not gonna put ourselves in a position where somebody’s not available and now we can’t field a good football team because of a couple players.
What would you say to fans who are concerned about the program’s ability to invest in talent when so many of these guys are coming up from the FCS level?
A coach at another institution called me and said that there was a player on his roster who played a total of zero snaps last year, and he’s going to get paid $1.1 million from another institution. So, if we want to pay for kids who have never played to come in here for $1.1 million, I don’t know, you tell me what business model would consider that to be successful. Honestly, some of these young people don’t understand, either, that some of these schools are just trying to bring you in as a depth piece. And as a depth piece, you can earn more money at some of these schools than what we’re gonna pay to start. We’re doing the best with what we have available to us right this moment. And in this moment, I think we’re finding really good gems that, hey, let them get out there, let them go play. Let these guys go out there and play a little ball and show that they want to play up. I’m looking for guys who are hungry, who want to show that. Don’t forget Cam Ward played at a little D-II school or whatever it was. And he ended up going to Wazzu and then lit it up and went to Miami on the way to being the number one draft pick. Okay? There’s a lot of kids who were four-star kids that came to school here and did nothing. There were a lot of three-star kids who came here and did nothing. Did absolutely nothing. Well, at least we have evidence that these kids actually can play football in college.
What has it been like working with your football general manager, Eron Hodges? What does he bring?
We work really well together because he understands what my philosophy is, and I’ve kind of given him the parameters for how we want to work in this space, and he’s executing it. I know I’m the one that has to take the heat for it, but this is what we have decided collectively as an organization to do. There’s a lot of emphasis on making sure certain positions are obtained the right way, and also looking for some of these diamonds in the rough. Even one of the defensive backs that we’re going to bring in (Isaiah Houi), we played against him last year at the place that I was at before (Alabama). And this kid, he played tough, physical. I mean, it was noticeable when we were playing against the kid. He played at a high level against a team that everybody universally believes is one of the better teams in college football. And so, if he can play well against them, then I think he’ll play really well for us against the opponents who we’ll go against.
What are you guys working with in terms of revenue share and NIL money for this roster?
It looks like we’re sitting in the middle of the rest of the Pac-12. I don’t really worry about what everybody else does, though. That’s not my concern. A lot of people, everybody knows all the problems in college football. And that’s what everybody wants to complain about. And they’ve got an opinion about all the problems, right? And there are very few people who are trying to work on the solutions. And so, everybody has their problems. We’re just trying to, you know, mitigate ours the best way we can.
Another person you brought with you from Alabama is Mitch Dahlen, a young guy getting his chance to come home and be your offensive coordinator. What can you say about him?
Mitch loves Oregon State. He loves his place. He grew up coming to games here since he was like one years old. His family’s still out here. friends, people that he’s had relationships with. His brother works at the Nike store up there in Beaverton. It’s been exciting to see him be thinking about just how badly he wants this place to be great again. And the fact that he has the keys to our offense and he’s going to be pushing the envelope to make the offense as good as it could possibly be. So, it’s exciting to see it. I had the opportunity to go back to Indiana, where I’m from, at one point when I coached at Purdue. It was a great opportunity because a lot of my family, friends and everything were there and got to be a part of it. So, I told him to get ready because there’s going to be a lot of air mattresses bought, a lot of blankets bought, a lot of food. a lot of Gatorades and waters purchased. Because they’re all gonna be crashing at your house, hanging out at your place all the time. So, just get ready for that because it’s memories that you’ll create that will last a lifetime. So, let’s create some freaking great memories here, man. Like, I’m excited to make some history here. And I’m not very patient, so I want to do it now. I want to make some history now.
What did you see from him when you were at Alabama that made you feel like he’s the guy that’s not only ready to take on that type of role, but can thrive in it?
Well, he had done it before, so this isn’t really the first time he’s ever coordinated. But he was just consistent in his preparation. For Coach (Ryan) Grubb and the rest of our offensive staff, he was kind of the man behind the man, you know what I mean? He was the one that was spending a lot of time with the quarterbacks off the field, trying to help them learn the playbook, learn the scheme and the why behind what we were doing. Testing them, quizzing them, questioning them, taking their thoughts into consideration and helping Grubb know and understand what was gonna work well for our quarterbacks and whatnot. But then, even on the field, he was the one pushing them through different drills and techniques to help them better develop on the field in an elite way. I thought he just did a fantastic job there. But he is also very innovative. He brought different ideas to the table, put ideas in front of the offensive staff, and just gave us the confidence that this was something that would work versus whatever team we were playing against. And so, his ability to develop that quarterback position, I’d put it up against pretty much anyone in the country. And he’s going to put it on display. He has an eye for it. He’s got just the right amount of confidence that it doesn’t boil over into that arrogance. But he’s also got just enough humility. I’m super excited to see what he does. I think he’s wanted this opportunity for a while and he’s about to run with it.
Speaking of quarterbacks, one guy who had high expectations coming into last season but faced a lot of criticism for his performance is Maalik Murphy. He is back in the fold this year. What is your view of how Dahlen might be able to help him develop, and of the quarterback room in general?
We have to be a developmental program here at the end of the day. We have to be focused on being able to develop. As I talked with Scott Barnes and the (hiring) committee about what was required to be successful here, I talked heavily about, yeah, we’ve got to bring in great recruiters. But at the same time, if we’ve got just a whole room full of great recruiters, then there’s gonna be a log jam. Because if we recruit at the top, then all those kids at the top are going want more, more, more money. So, we’ve got to be able to identify kids that can develop into becoming those four- or five-stars that you think of. That’s where I think Mitch has done an excellent job of being able to see, hey, this mimics this particular quarterback. Whether it be Michael Penix or Ty Simpson or Jake Haener, he mimics or has skill sets similar to this guy. And so that’s where, when you think about Maalik, he’s got a lot of tools. He just has to be able to revamp how he’s using those tools to make himself the most successful quarterback that he can be. I think one of the biggest tools, the greatest tool that he has, is his leadership. Like, I’m walking by the field, and this dude’s got the whole receiving corps out there catching balls all the time. I’ve been excited about just him and his presence. It’s been really great around the building. And I told him, we’ve got to just tweak some things for you. And I think he’ll definitely appreciate what we can do to help him become a better quarterback.
Part two of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s conversation with JaMarcus Shephard will publish on Wednesday.