Brendan Sorsby, who transferred to Texas Tech in January as one of the most coveted players in the transfer portal, is taking an immediate and indefinite leave of absence from the program and entering a residential treatment program for a gambling addiction. The school announced the move Monday, and the case now sits at the intersection of college football discipline, NCAA betting rules and a little-used NFL path that could matter if Sorsby loses his final year of eligibility.
Sorsby began his career at Indiana and spent the past two seasons at Cincinnati. Industry sources confirmed an report saying he bet on Indiana football in 2022, when he was a redshirt freshman for the Hoosiers. Under NCAA sports betting guidelines updated in 2023, players who wager on games involving their own school face potential permanent loss of eligibility, and the NCAA is investigating Sorsby’s gambling.
The nfl supplemental draft exists for players who did not enter the regular NFL Draft but later need a route into the league for the upcoming season. It has been held only when there are eligible prospects, and the league last hosted it in 2023, when two eligible prospects were available and neither was selected. No player has been taken in the supplemental draft since the Arizona Cardinals used it in 2019 to select defensive back Jalen Thompson.
That history matters because the supplemental draft is not a standing annual event. Players must apply to the NFL league office and be approved for eligibility, then the draft order is determined by a lottery system based on the previous season’s win-loss records. Teams with six or fewer wins, the rest of the non-playoff teams and the 14 playoff teams are grouped separately, with the order in each group randomly selected. If multiple teams bid on a player in the same round, the team first in the order gets him, and any club that wins a player must forfeit its pick in that round in the following NFL Draft.
The draft is usually untelevised, takes about 10 minutes and is held on or before the seventh calendar day before the opening of the first training camp. For Sorsby, the immediate issue is treatment and whether he can return to football. If the NCAA rescinds his final year of college eligibility, the supplemental draft could become a possible next stop.
