Oklahoma RB Transfer Marcus Major Commits to Minnesota

By    |  
Updated:
Marcus Major, Minnesota Gophers
Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Sunday evening ended up being an eventful night in the transfer portal for the Minnesota Gophers football program. Early on, they received a transfer portal commitment from Penn State wide receiver, Cristian Driver.

Oklahoma Transfer Portal Running Back Commits to Minnesota Gophers

Later, after many of us had already called it a weekend, Oklahoma Sooners running back Marcus Major announced on social media that he too is heading to Dinkytown. Major is a graduate transfer who has one year of eligibility remaining. He never rushed for over 308 yards at Oklahoma, a number he reached last season, on a career-high 78 carries.

Related: Minnesota Gophers Football Transfer Portal Tracker 2023-24

What are Gophers getting in Marcus Major?

A composite 4-Star high school recruit out of Oklahoma City, Marcus ends a 5-year run with his home state Sooners where he rushed for a total of 833 yards (4.3 YPC) and 8 touchdowns in 35 games played.

As a redshirt freshman in 2020, he appeared in 10 games and had fans around Norman excited. But injury issues and a stacked Sooner backfield cut into his long-term production at OU.

Honestly, I think the Gophers are getting an undervalued experienced running back who, in the least, will add a power and short-distance presence to their ground attack that they lacked in 2023, especially when Darius Taylor was out with injury. Marcus Major brings a lot of experience, but not a lot of punishment on his body, for a 6th-year back.

The Gophers, as a program, have two options when shopping in the transfer portal. They can take standout high school school talent (former 4-star kids usually) who didn’t reach their potential at helmet schools (like Oklahoma and Penn State).

Their other realistic option is to take established college standouts from smaller schools, who didn’t get the looks out of high school, but dominated lower level competition at their previous University. We’ve seen both approaches work and both approaches fail. Driver and Major are in the former category.

Related: Gophers Koi Perich Snags Interception, Blocks Punt in All-American Bowl MVP Performance

Gophers lose backup transfer portal QB commitment

In other news from the weekend, Minnesota also lost a transfer portal commitment from quarterback Logan Fife, who had committed to Minnesota from Fresno State.

Fife played part time for the Bulldogs each of the past two seasons. In 2023, he threw 91 passes, completed 57.1% of them for 642 yards, 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. He was not expected to start and only has two years of eligibility remaining.

Mentioned in this article:

More About: