TEMPE, Ariz. — Kyler Murray never played soccer beyond the FIFA video game, but when Real Madrid and its star forward, Cristiano Ronaldo, visited the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to play an exhibition against AS Roma, he made sure he got tickets.
He admired Ronaldo’s dynamism, his goal-scoring prowess, his flair, and in those days, a week shy of his 17th birthday, Murray evoked a schoolboy version of Ronaldo, capable of implausible levels of sorcery every time he played football or baseball. He had already quarterbacked the Allen High Eagles to two state titles (with a third to come), and he knew he could play either game, or both, in college and the pros.