Brendan Sorsby’s path has pushed him into a corner college football almost never sees.
After Tuesday’s public statement from Sorsby and an internal memo from the NFL, the uncertainty is over. The quarterback won’t be on the field for Texas Tech this season, and he won’t be trying to force his way into the league through the courts either. Unless he reverses course from saying he is “fully committed” to preparing for the 2027 NFL Draft, he is headed for a de facto gap year between college football and the pros.
That kind of limbo is rare. A player getting stuck between the college game and the NFL after betting on his own team doesn’t have a clean historical match. The closest comparisons are messy, imperfect, and all different in their own way.
Maurice Clarett is still the biggest name in the conversation. The former Ohio State running back was a star as a freshman during the Buckeyes’ 2002 national championship run, then was suspended the next season for violating NCAA rules.
He challenged the NFL rule that kept players out of the draft until they were three years removed from high school, won an early court ruling, and then watched an appeals court undo it in an opinion written by current Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor. Clarett missed the 2004 NFL Draft, waited another year, and was finally taken by the Broncos in the third round.
Denver cut him before he ever played a regular-season snap.
Mike Williams followed a different path, but he ended up in a strange holding pattern too. After two strong seasons at USC, he decided to go pro early once Clarett initially won in court.
By the time that ruling was reversed, Williams had already hired an agent and closed the door on college. He spent much of 2004 training in Georgia for the next level, then the Lions picked him 10th overall, one spot ahead of Pro Football Hall of Famer DeMarcus Ware.
Two years later, Detroit traded him to the Raiders, where he was reunited with former college coach Lane Kiffin. Williams never fully hit the ceiling people expected, playing for five teams and finishing with 30 starts and 1,526 receiving yards.
There’s also the service academy route, though that comparison comes with a big asterisk. The article is clear that Sorsby’s situation is not being compared to military service, and Roger Staubach stands in a category of his own.
Still, Army, Navy and Air Force players have long had to step away from football to meet military obligations. Staubach, the 1963 Heisman Trophy winner, spent four seasons out of the game and completed a tour of duty in Vietnam before leading the Cowboys to two Super Bowl titles.
Bryce Fisher is a more recent example: he spent two years in active duty in the Air Force after being drafted by the Bills and before joining the roster, then started 48 games over seven seasons as a defensive end.
Josh Gordon’s story also fits the theme of time lost between one stage and the next, even if the reasons were very different. Gordon dealt with multiple drug issues in college and was suspended indefinitely by Baylor in 2011.
That came too late for the NFL supplemental draft, so he transferred to Utah. People around that team kept talking about his talent years later, even though he only worked on the scout team and never played in a game there.
The Browns eventually selected him in the supplemental draft a year later. His NFL career swung wildly from an All-Pro season in 2013 to later substance-abuse problems and suspensions, and he finished with 252 catches before last appearing in a game in 2022.
The pandemic created another unusual detour in 2020, when uncertainty led many players to opt out for reasons tied to health, family and getting a head start on the next level. The NFL didn’t seem to mind the lost season from four of the biggest names: Ja’Marr Chase, Penei Sewell, Micah Parsons and Rashawn Slater all went in the top 13 picks in 2021, and they’ve combined for 16 Pro Bowl appearances.
But not every opt-out turned into a clean launch. Quarterback Jamie Newman transferred from Wake Forest to Georgia, never played for the Bulldogs, went undrafted, briefly spent time with the Eagles and then played in the CFL in 2022.
Sorsby now joins a very small and very unusual club - not quite like any of the names before him, but close enough to show how rare this kind of football gap year really is.
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