DeMarco Murray's Record-Setting Season Continues

The rookie has rushed for 466 yards in three games, breaking a team record previously held by Emmitt Smith.

Sunday, November 6th 2011, 10:54 pm

By: News 9


Former Oklahoma running back DeMarco Murray recorded the second team record of his young career for the Dallas Cowboys Saturday in a 23-13 win over the Seattle Seahawks.

Murray ran 22 times for 139 yards, his second 100-yard performance in three games. The first of those performances came against the St. Louis Rams, when he ran for a franchise record 253 yards.

"We could not tackle Murray," Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. "We missed him time and time again. When we had plays made, he got out. He is really good."

With a 74-yard performance sandwiched between his two big games, Murray has rushed for a total of 466 in the last three games. That is the most rushing yards in a three-game span for any player in Cowboys history -- breaking a record previously held by Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith -- and the fifth most for any rookie in NFL history.

Murray took over as the Cowboys' featured back because regular starter Felix Jones was sidelined with a high ankle sprain. Murray has averaged 8.4 yards per carry since taking over and has become Dallas' leading rusher.

"Any time you have a player like Felix Jones go down, you're hopeful the next guy can step in and do the job," Dallas head coach Jason Garrett said. "We felt great about drafting DeMarco. We felt like he was a complete back, and I think he's shown us in the last three weeks what kind of football player he is."

Jones started the first five games of the season, and in that span had just 253 yards on 63 carries, an average of 4.0 yards per carry. That means Murray had exactly the same number of yards in one game as Jones did in five games.

Jones is expected to miss one more game before returning, but the Cowboys have not said whether he will be placed back into the starting lineup once he is healthy.

"It's pretty obvious that [Murray] adds a real spark to our running game, but we also saw Felix adding spark to our running game earlier as well," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. "I think you'll probably see Felix even more effective knowing that, our team knowing that we've got a guy like DeMarco, who can be a one-two punch."

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