The spotlight will always be on the guy who is playing quarterback for Oklahoma.

Most who were at Owen Field Wednesday for the Sooners’ first spring scrimmage were fixated on Joey Halzle, Sam Bradford and true freshman Keith Nichol.

But running back DeMarco Murray managed to take at least some of the focus away from the battle under the center.

The redshirt freshman amassed 129 all-purpose yards and scored a pair of touchdowns. He was was one of the few highlights in OU’s first workout under fans’ eyes.

OU coach Bob Stoops admitted he wasn’t expecting perfection so early in the spring, but what he got didn’t qualify as stellar.

“I didn’t expect it to be what it needed to be execution wise, but I wasn’t pleased with our overall intensity,” he said. “So I’m not very happy.”

The scrimmage was the Sooners’ fifth of 15 spring workouts. There isn’t a team in college football that looks like it’s ready to start playing games that count after such a short time.

But Stoops pointed at poor tackling and lackluster play on both the offensive and defensive lines as problems Saturday.

“I didn’t like the intensity on either side of the line of scrimmage,” he said. “It was too inconsistent, not enoungh toughness, not enough attitude. They show it at times, but it’s not what it needs to be.”

As far as the quarterback race, Halzle and Bradford took the majority of the snaps in the 90-play scrimmage. Both had their ups and downs.

Halzle completed 6-of-11 passes for 109 yards and one touchdown. He was intercepted twice. Bradford was good on 8-of-14 attempts for 117 yards with one touchdown, but he had one picked. Nichol was able to get out without a turnover and was 6-of-8 for 40 yards with one touchdown.

None of the quarterbacks were available to the media Wednesday.

But quarterbacks coach Josh Heupel said he saw enough encouraging things from the trio.

“You’re going to get a little bit of everything,” he said. “I thought our guys competed for the most part. There’s some things that happened early that our kids responded to and got back on track. That’s what you want to see.”

But Murray was the scene-stealer Wednesday.