Typically, if Eric Morris needed anything from Raj Murti, the North Texas head coach would walk just down the hallway to Murti’s office. Except for one morning.
During the week of North Texas’ regular season finale, Murti, the Mean Green’s general manager, got a 6 a.m. call from Morris, telling him to meet him in his office. There, Morris told Murti he had accepted the coaching job at Oklahoma State and that he was coming with him.
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With signing day a week away, Murti constructed a 14-personnel department – including himself, a director of player personnel and two assistant directors of player personnel – and worked to build a recruiting class in a matter of days.
On Friday, Murti was the guest speaker, along with special assistant to the head coach Steve Keasler, at the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce’s April Business @ Lunch event. Murti, 24, talked briefly about his role as OSU football’s new GM, his evaluation process and that rapid transition to OSU.
“The four of us likened it to full – not panic – but defcon,” Murti said.
Raj Murti spring practice
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Oklahoma State football general manager Raj Murti watches spring practice April 7.
As soon as Morris took the job and the news broke, Murti and the staff were on the phone trying to retain local recruits, such as Jenks High running back KD Jones and Bixby High safety Braeden Presley. Murti arrived in Stillwater on Sunday, Nov. 30, and he had until signing day on Wednesday, Dec. 3, to round out the class.
“Our whole personnel staff, we were on the phone every minute from probably 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., signing our signing class,” Murti said.
The Cowboys signed 15 players on signing day – 12 high schoolers and three from junior college. After that, and once the rest of the coaching staff arrived in Stillwater after UNT’s bowl game, Murti spent the rest of December preparing for the Jan. 2 opening of the transfer portal.
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“We just started watching tape. We watched every single player that we could,” Murti said. “There were a lot of players that transferred away from coach at North Texas to go play Power Four football and then wanted to come back and play for coach again.”
When the portal opened, Murti was ready. OSU had 22 players on campus for visits as soon as the portal opened, and from there until Jan. 28, the Cowboys totaled more than 90 official visits. OSU’s portal class ranked seventh and was the largest class in the country.
Each player was researched in-depth and evaluated by Murti and the coaching staff. But what does his evaluation process look like?
EvaluationScouts are assigned to a maximum of two or three position groups, and each is responsible for recruiting high schools, JUCOs, the transfer portal and even self-scouting OSU. From there, recruiting and evaluation goes up to the position coaches, then coordinators.
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“We have to work in unison with our coaching staff to make sure that we all agree that this guy is a good player. And there’s always going to be disagreements with evaluations,” Murti said. “Coach and I disagree on a lot things, but we get some good data out of it.”
Murti and the staff then perform background checks on potential recruits. Once everything is green-lighted, Murti begins his evaluation and assessment as GM.
“Once I evaluate a player, I start messing around with a little spreadsheet and figuring out what spot they fit in,” Murti said. “We operate on an NFL model at Oklahoma State. Some teams do it differently.”
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Oklahoma State football general manager Raj Murti, left, and Steve Keasler, special assistant to the head coach, speak at the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
Murti splits the money up and allocates it by position group, like the NFL model. For instance, quarterbacks might be worth 10% of what Murti calls the “salary cap,” whereas the 20-player offensive line unit might be worth 20% as a whole.
Murti said he performed a study on all 32 NFL teams and found that teams with franchise quarterbacks versus teams with rookie quarterbacks operate differently and spend differently across the board. A year ago, Murti and Morris were operating with a rookie QB in redshirt freshmen Drew Mestemaker. This year, after leading the nation in passing, Mestemaker is a franchise QB.
“So, we had to spend a little bit differently and adjust our percentages,” Murti said. “From there, we take those percentages from our total salary cap, and we assign every single spot on our depth chart a dollar amount.
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“From there, Coach and I get into our arguments of how much he thinks that player’s worth compared to what I think. After a couple agent conversations and some haggling and contract talks, they become a Cowboy.”
Despite his young age, Murti has experience evaluating talent in the Big 12 and the region. He began his career as an undergraduate recruiting assistant at Houston under coach Dana Holgorsen from 2019-21. After graduating from UH with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in finance, Murti spent two more seasons with the Cougars as a program assistant and was promoted to director of player personnel in 2023.
Then, the rapid rise began. Murti left for TCU in 2024, where he served as recruiting coordinator for coach Sonny Dykes. And in March 2025, Murti got a call from Morris with an offer to become the GM at UNT, where he helped build a roster that went 12-2. Murti said college football is evolving rapidly, and he’s already seen his role change as GM.
“In the past, we called it director of player personnel. We just oversaw the scouting and recruiting,” Murti said. “And now, I spend a lot of time on the phone with agents and contract managers. Everyone has agents. High school kids have agents. It’s a completely new world in college football, so that’s kinda where my role steps in.”
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Recruiting locallyOne of the other topics Murti quickly hit on was the program’s approach to high school recruiting.
Traditionally, OSU has focused on and thrived on recruiting Oklahoma and Texas. This new OSU staff will be no different. Of the 12 freshmen the Cowboys signed this year, 10 were home-staters or from border states Texas, Arkansas or Missouri.
“We like to be regional recruiters. We only like to recruit states that are Oklahoma or border Oklahoma,” Murti said. “There’s no need for us to go out to Pennsylvania or California when we can go right down the street and get the same player at Bixby or Tulsa Union or Edmond. So, we make a really big emphasis on that – of recruiting regionally and making sure we scrape the barrel.”
