The 2026 Supplemental Draft That Never Happened: How Brendan Sorsby Lost a Year of Football

By the DraftClassInsider staff · Published October 12, 2026 · Reporting through October 12, 2026

At a glance

Who: quarterback Brendan Sorsby. He played at Indiana (2022-23) and Cincinnati (2024-25), then transferred to Texas Tech in January 2026. He was first-team All-Big 12 in 2025.
Why he applied: the NCAA ruled him ineligible over sports betting. Court filings describe thousands of bets totaling at least $90,000 over three years, including at least 40 on his own team's games and players at Indiana.
June 23: the NFL told teams it would not hold a 2026 supplemental draft. Sorsby was the only applicant.
June 30: the NFL, the NFL Players Association and Sorsby settled. He is eligible for the 2027 draft and cannot sign an NFL contract until that draft is over.
Also closed: the CFL said it would not register a contract for him or let any team put him on its negotiation list.
The last supplemental draft pick was safety Jalen Thompson, taken by Arizona in 2019. The only supplemental draft held since then, in 2023, ended with no players taken.

A Rarely Used Exception

The supplemental draft is the NFL's way in for players whose college eligibility changes after the regular draft. It has seven rounds. A team that uses a pick gives up a pick in the same round of the next year's draft. Teams are ordered in three groups: those with six or fewer wins, the other non-playoff teams, and then the 14 playoff teams.

It used to produce real players. Front Office Sports counts 46 selections since 1977, and Cris Carter is the only one in the Hall of Fame. Lately it has barely existed. The last player chosen was Washington State safety Jalen Thompson, a fifth-round pick of the Cardinals in 2019. There was no supplemental draft in 2020, 2021 or 2022. In 2023 the league held one for two eligible receivers, Milton Wright of Purdue and Malachi Wideman of Jackson State, and nobody took either. None was held in 2024 or 2025.

How Sorsby Ended Up Needing One

Sorsby's college career would make him a draft prospect on its own. He played 35 games at Indiana and Cincinnati and threw for 7,208 yards, 60 touchdowns and 18 interceptions, and he ran for 1,295 yards and 22 more scores. In 2025 he led the Big 12 in passer efficiency at 155.1 and made the conference's first team. CBS reported that 247Sports rated him the No. 2 overall prospect in the transfer portal, and in January he chose Texas Tech. Cincinnati then sued him, saying he broke his NIL agreement by not paying $1 million in damages for transferring.

The gambling case started with a tip. According to court documents reported by the AP, the NCAA heard from an online sportsbook on March 11 and notified Texas Tech on April 14. On April 27, Texas Tech announced that Sorsby would leave the team indefinitely to enter a residential treatment program for gambling addiction. "We love Brendan and support his decision to seek professional help," coach Joey McGuire said. ESPN reported that the program lasted 35 days, at an inpatient facility in Goodyear, Arizona.

The filings describe the betting in detail. At Indiana he placed at least 2,900 bets totaling more than $30,000, including at least 40 on Hoosiers football games and players. The filings say none were on games he played in. He kept betting after transferring to Cincinnati, though not on the Bearcats, and more than $60,000 went through a friend into a FanDuel account registered to his brother-in-law. At Texas Tech, he sent about $5,000 through Venmo or Zelle to other people who placed bets for him.

What followed was a series of legal fights:

May 18: Texas Tech declared him ineligible, the step a school must take before asking for reinstatement. Sorsby sued the NCAA the same day.
May 22 and June 5: the NCAA denied reinstatement, then denied Texas Tech's appeal, according to an AP source.
June 8: Judge Ken Curry granted a temporary injunction that would have let him play in 2026 after sitting out two games, as long as he stayed in treatment. The NCAA appealed.
June 15: the Big 12 sued Texas Tech and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeking the right to punish the school if Sorsby played. The same day, according to Sorsby's own court filing, Texas Tech told him he would not play in 2026 regardless of the injunction.
Mid-June: he dropped the lawsuit. The AP explained why: he "had to be ineligible for NCAA play to be able to apply for the NFL's supplemental draft."

The NFL Says No

The application deadline was June 22. On June 23, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo reported that the league would not hold a supplemental draft, and NFL.com published the Management Council's letter to Sorsby. It said the league had no plans for a 2026 supplemental draft "as no other player has sought entry," and it did not hold back:

"Your Petition -- filed three business days before the deadline, without any supporting information or documentation, and only after abandoning your recent litigation efforts to avoid NCAA sanctions -- does not provide a basis for the League to alter those plans. The issues presented by your Petition are too significant, and too closely tied to the League's core integrity interests, to permit meaningful review within the timeline presented."

The letter also said the reported conduct "includes placing wagers on your own team and teammates and, to avoid detection, establishing or funding accounts in the names of intermediaries who placed bets on your behalf." It encouraged him to prepare for the 2027 draft instead.

His lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler, the antitrust attorney who has represented players against the league before, said Sorsby "fully completed the application and submitted it to the NFL within hours of receiving it" and learned of the decision "when the media reported it." He called it "an unlawful action by the NFL in violation of the CBA." Tom Pelissero of NFL Network pointed out that holding a supplemental draft "is at the sole discretion of the NFL."

The decision left Sorsby with nowhere to play. NBC's Mike Florio explained the rule that made it so final: "No player can sign with an NFL team without first being available to be drafted." Three days later the CFL closed its door too. "At this time, the CFL will not register a contract for him, and no team will be permitted to add him to its negotiation list," the league said.

The Settlement

On June 30 the league, the players' union and Sorsby reached a deal. The terms:

He "will be considered a 'Draft-Eligible' player for the 2027 NFL Draft."
He "will not be eligible to sign an NFL Player Contract until the completion of the 2027 NFL Draft."
He can take part in the normal pre-draft process: the Senior Bowl, a pro day and team visits.
The NFL will not discipline him for his known conduct in college, but it reserves the right to investigate beyond the public filings.
There will be no further litigation over his entry into the league.

NFL.com called it "a de facto one-year suspension at all levels of the game -- college, the NFL and the CFL." Sorsby's statement didn't argue: "I accept 100% responsibility for my actions. I did not have control of my gambling problem and it took getting caught for me to realize that."

Where He Is Now

Sorsby is one of the main subjects of the Paramount+ docuseries The Program: Texas Tech, which premiered September 4. It has four episodes, is narrated by Dennis Quaid and opens with his recruitment. The Big 12 dropped its lawsuit against Texas Tech in September, saying the two sides had "resolved this matter internally." On October 5, Sorsby posted on social media for the first time since April 24: a video of drills, throws and film study captioned "Leave the past in the past. Learn from it, grow from it. Full focus ahead on the things to come."

Our Take

The supplemental draft has nearly disappeared. Since 2020 the league has held one, in 2023, and nobody was picked in it. Sorsby's case shows why that matters. Without a supplemental draft, a player who loses his eligibility after the regular draft cannot sign with an NFL team until the next one, so a gambling case that came out in the spring cost him the entire 2026 season.

He will be a 2027 draft prospect who has missed a year of football, and teams will have to judge an off-field record as well as his play. He threw 60 touchdown passes in college and got very good in 2025, but where he is drafted will depend on what teams learn in interviews. The NFL has kept the right to look into his past conduct.

He wasn't the only player in 2026 caught between college and the NFL. Other players went the opposite direction: undrafted rookies who tried to go back to college under new eligibility rulings, two of whom are now barred from the NFL for the season. For the class that did get drafted, see our Week 5 reality check and the undrafted early returns.

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