Editor’s note: This story was originally published June 9 and has been updated after Brendan Sorsby announced he will enter the NFL Supplemental Draft.
Texas Tech paid a fortune to make a run at a national title last year. The money mega-booster Cody Campbell and company spent for their suddenly elite defensive line, led by David Bailey, proved to be a shrewd investment. The Red Raiders led the nation in run defense and won the Big 12 for the first time, earning a spot in the College Football Playoff. The problem? They didn’t opt to upgrade from quarterback Behren Morton and got shut out 23-0 by fellow name, image and likeness heavyweight Oregon in the Playoff.
The Red Raiders decided this winter they would go all in on a quarterback this time, spending around $5 million to land Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby, the No. 4 player in The Athletic’s transfer quarterback rankings. But after spring ball in Lubbock, it was revealed that the 6-foot-3, 235-pound Texan had placed more than 9,000 bets, totaling more than $90,000, during his college career, including on Indiana football in 2022 while he was a member of the team.
That triggered all sorts of chaos inside the Big 12 as a legal battle unfolded, escalating last week after a Texas state court granted a temporary injunction order in his lawsuit against the NCAA to allow Sorsby to play this fall before the Big 12 responded with a lawsuit and the NCAA filed an appeal. By Monday night, Sorsby — at the center of the biggest story in college sports, which was getting messier by the day — was ready to enter the NFL Supplemental Draft.
Now, a different question arises: What kind of NFL quarterback prospect is Sorsby? The Athletic spoke to several sources in the NFL and in the Big 12, who were granted anonymity to candidly discuss the player, about the guy who was considered by multiple teams to be the top quarterback in the portal.
One NFL scout The Athletic spoke to Tuesday said that had Sorsby entered the 2026 NFL Draft, he could’ve seen him go before Ty Simpson, who was the second QB taken at No. 13 to the Rams.
“Really loved him,” said the scout, who had essentially a second-round grade on Sorsby. “He’s very talented. Got a big-time arm. High ceiling.”
But factoring in the background complicates all that, the scout said. “It’s really gonna be one of those things where if there’s a team that really needs one and falls in love with him, there’s usually gonna be a team that turns the blind eye and goes the other way.
“I don’t think he goes in the second round. Absolutely not. That’s too big of a gamble — no pun intended. … But why wouldn’t someone take him late and think they can fix him? These coaches all think they can fix ’em. That’s part of the problem. Very rarely can they, but they all try.”
Sorsby’s physical talent had college coaches raving.
“He’s a big kid that can do it all,” said one Power 4 QB coach. “He can run. He can throw. He’s accurate. He makes all the off-platform throws. He’s a frickin’ competitor. He’s not soft. He does not turn the ball over and he does not miss open guys. He had 36 total TDs and only six turnovers. He is about as good as you can be at all the stuff that you can’t coach — the off-platform throws, the tight-window throws.”
Sorsby, who was once ranked as the No. 101 QB in the 2022 recruiting class by 247Sports, had an eye-popping 20-to-1 TD to INT ratio over the first two months of the 2025 season, but in four games in November, that ratio sunk to 7-to-4, and the Bearcats, 7-1 entering the month, lost all four games.
A source at Cincinnati said he felt a lot of the Bearcats’ struggles had to do with a big jump in the caliber of competition. UC, which didn’t face any ranked teams in its first eight games, faced three Top 25 teams in the final month, and the fourth was Arizona, which finished 9-4.
On the road at No. 14 Utah, the Bearcats were forced to throw the ball after getting down in the game, a bad formula against the Utes. Against Arizona, the Bears had a bunch of big drops by their receivers. Against No. 11 BYU, they missed three field goals, a wide receiver fumbled going into the end zone and they got stopped on a fourth-and-1 at the 5-yard line. In the fourth game, at No. 25 TCU, Sorsby threw for 282 yards with three TDs and no picks.
Still, his record of 1-11 in November games over the past three seasons is something some defensive coaches noted.
“He is super talented. He has all the arm strength, can run, really good size,” one defensive coordinator told The Athletic recently. “He’s really fast — and he is willing to run. I do think he has underachieved. He could be so much better if he worked at the leadership part of the position, bringing guys up with him. Like, when things were going well, they were going well. And when they weren’t, they couldn’t really bounce back from that. I don’t know if he’s one of those innate leaders.”
The intangibles piece, something so vital in the evaluation of any QB making the move up to the NFL, will be especially complicated for the NFL. It already was tricky given Sorsby’s game and some of the questions rival coaches had about him, but add in the gambling addiction and it gets even more nuanced. One Big 12 personnel director, who already was skeptical of Sorsby elevating his game at Tech, was even more leery after the gambling scandal about how the QB would manage it all this fall.
“If you think that he’s going to plug-and-play into this, of whatever level of NFL talent you think that he’s capable of, I think that is sorely underestimating the mental toll this is probably taking on him,” the personnel director said. “He is 0-8 in November the last two years. We watched every game that he’s played for the last two seasons. He is toolsy, but it’s never been to the point, outside of maybe the game they played against Tech two years ago, where you felt this is the best dude on the field.
“I get it: He can run and he’s got a good arm, but you watch the tape, there’s just some bad things, some strange losses and some clunker performances. Just a lot of it. And if you think about whatever he’s gone through the last year, and the scrutiny he’s already gone through, and now the scrutiny that he’s going to receive and he’s gonna come out and perform at a higher level? Man, that’s a hard scenario to see.”
Dane Brugler, The Athletic’s NFL Draft analyst, said if Sorsby had declared for the 2026 NFL Draft, he would have been in the QB3 mix, somewhere on Day 2.
“Nothing has changed in terms of his on-field evaluation — Sorsby is the most talented quarterback prospect to enter the supplemental draft in over 30 years,” Brugler said. “But obviously, his off-field situation is very serious and complicates his NFL projection. After talking with teams, best guess is a team uses a Day 3 pick on Sorsby.
“He’s a good-sized athlete with a quick release and all the arm talent required to attack every level of the field. He is productive executing off-platform, but his loose mechanics can be his undoing. He is too comfortable working off-balance and fading away from throws, which disrupts his footwork and ball placement. With improvements in those areas as a senior in college, teams expected him to be in the first-round conversation in the 2027 draft class. But the gambling cloud hanging over his draft projection makes this an unprecedented situation. Is there enough time before July’s supplemental draft for teams to fully understand his recovery and mindset?”