Brendan Sorsby scouting report: Where would he rank among the top QB draft prospects?

The Brendan Sorsby saga has taken an unprecedented new turn.

After previously being ruled ineligible by the NCAA to bet on college sports, the star quarterback was granted a temporary injunction Monday that makes him eligible to play for Texas Tech this fall — for now.

The decision sent shockwaves throughout the sport and could have major ramifications within college football and the NFL. Sorsby, scandal aside, is considered one of the most talented QB prospects in the country, drawing significant attention to whether – and where – he will play in 2026.

There’s still a chance this summer that Sorsby ends up in an NFL supplemental draft, which hasn’t seen anyone selected since the Arizona Cardinals used a fifth-round pick on safety Jalen Thompson in 2019.

Although Sorsby’s playing status appears to be far from settled, he will immediately return to the NFL’s radar if he loses his NCAA eligibility again. In the meantime, we looked at his biggest strengths and weaknesses, where he ranks as a draft prospect, his pro comps and his best NFL team matchups.

Highlights

At a solid 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds, Sorsby certainly looks the part of an NFL quarterback. And he also has the arm and athleticism to play at the highest level.

In today’s era of simplified offenses, statistics can certainly be misleading. Sorsby’s numbers, however, speak for themselves. He completed 61.4% of his passes for 7,208 yards and 60 touchdowns against 18 interceptions in 35 games combined at Cincinnati (2024-25) and Indiana (2022-23) while rushing for another 1,295 yards and 22 touchdowns.

He has enough arm strength to make every throw in the playbook and is a gifted and creative passer who can throw from a variety of arm slots. He has excellent touch on intermediate throws, consistently “dropping it in the bucket” on fades and verticals. Sorsby can also increase RPMs and shoot deep crossovers and deep takedowns with accuracy. Frankly, the arm talent is undeniable.

As his rushing totals suggest, Sorsby is also a real threat as a runner. Cincinnati and Indiana both wisely called plenty of QB runs for him, but he doesn’t rely on them to keep the defense honest. He shows patience in the pocket and looks to exhaust his downfield passing opportunities before dropping his eyes to rush – but when he does, Sorsby can slip away. He accelerates smoothly and has good lateral agility to escape, as well as body armor to absorb the occasional tackle. He’s a competitive runner with good vision and an understanding of his position on the field, scrambling for first downs 109 times over the past three years.

Sorsby plays with a swagger that will appeal to NFL teams. He showed steady development in his three seasons as a starter and looked like a future first-round pick in Cincinnati last year. Perhaps more importantly, he demonstrated maturity and humility by publicly admitting his gambling addiction and recently completed a 35-day inpatient rehab stay at Algamus, a respected gambling treatment center in Goodyear, Ari.

Sorsby is an excellent runner, adding 22 rushing touchdowns during his college career. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

Weaknesses

The concerns surrounding Sorsby are just as obvious as his talent, even if most of them lie off the field.

The quarterback position requires leadership, responsibility and selflessness. Some NFL teams may have a hard time believing that Sorsby has enough to warrant a draft pick.

He is an admitted gambling addict who has bet thousands of times, including on Indiana while playing for the Hoosiers. He used the names of his family and friends as a proxy for betting, clearly trying to evade NCAA rules.

Scouts looking to examine Sorsby might find few defenders.

Although Curt Cignetti and many of his coaches were not yet at Indiana when Sorsby played there, others who were there might be hesitant to sully the reputation of the defending national champion Hoosiers. The program, itself, looked like one seeking to distance itself from Sorsby with a short, terse statement to the Daily Hoosier after his game was discovered.

And given that the University of Cincinnati filed a $1 million lawsuit against him for violating the 18-month NIL contract he signed after transferring to Indiana, Sorsby may not have many Bearcats fans either.

His former Cincinnati teammates might feel the same way given that Sorsby opted out of the 2026 Liberty Bowl against Navy, a Jan. 2 game that the Bearcats lost 35-13 while generating just 12 first downs total on offense.

Frankly, interested NFL teams will ultimately spend more time evaluating Sorsby’s character than his recorded weaknesses. But like any young quarterback, he certainly has flaws.

There are times when Sorsby drops his arm slot significantly, which could become a problem in the NFL. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)

Sorsby shows good accuracy at all levels of the court, but some of his deep balls float a bit, giving defenders a chance to recover. A few of his interceptions last season came on deep balls hanging in the air, including one in the final seconds of Cincinnati’s season opener at Nebraska, where Sorsby was intercepted at the goal line to seal a 20-17 loss.

While I like his ability to lower his arm angle and throw around defenders as well as over them, Sorsby often unnecessarily resorts to a slingshot and sidearm release which makes him a much shorter passer and more likely to have passes batted at the line of scrimmage in the NFL. Like most quarterbacks at this stage of their career, Sorsby can get a little panicky when rushing to the house and his accuracy drops when his feet aren’t settled.

As a runner, he often carries the ball with one hand and, despite what his stats suggest, he has struggled a bit with fumbles. While losing “only” five fumbles in his college career, Sorsby actually put the ball on the ground 12 times in 294 career attempts, according to PFF.

Draw range

There wasn’t a player in the 2026 draft class with a higher ceiling and lower floor than Sorsby, so projecting where he would have been selected is a more complicated assumption than it seems.

Let me explain.

Sorsby is a more physically gifted and significantly more experienced quarterback than Alabama product Ty Simpson. Had the former not faced the off-field complexities mentioned above, I believe he could have been drafted ahead of Simpson, who, surprisingly, went 13th overall to the Los Angeles Rams.

That’s not to say the Rams would specifically rank Sorsby over Simpson. As noted before the draft, I thought Simpson – an accurate and quick pocket passer – was a particularly perfect choice for Los Angeles.

While it’s unlikely that Brendan Sorsby would have been selected ahead of Fernando Mendoza if he had declared for the 2026 NFL Draft, Sorsby’s ceiling could be higher. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

For the record, I don’t believe Sorsby would have challenged Fernando Mendoza as the Las Vegas Raiders’ No. 1 selection if he had declared. Sorsby’s traits and ascending play would have attracted many other suitors after Mendoza, however, including perhaps the New York Jets at No. 2 overall and the Cardinals at No. 3.

But, of course, Sorsby has character issues, and NFL clubs may have known about them – or at least suspected them – before the draft. (Reports that he was under investigation by the NCAA for sports gambling surfaced just days after the draft.) So it’s also entirely possible that he fell.

Ultimately, though, the benefits of a cheap contract for a starting-caliber quarterback would simply be too tempting for some clubs. I’m guessing someone would have thrown at least one day 2 dart.

As for the 2027 draft, which Sorsby is currently seeking to be included in, the competition is considerably tougher. In my way-too-early 2027 mock, I had five QBs taken off the board in the first round, and all by the No. 14 overall pick: Arch Manning (No. 1, Dolphins), Dante Moore (No. 2, Cardinals), Sam Leavitt (No. 4, Browns), Julian Sayin (No. 12, Jets) and LaNorris Sellers (No. 14, Steelers). It’s also worth noting that Joel Klatt of FOX Sports ranked quarterbacks CJ Carr and Trinidad Chambliss among his initial top 10 prospects in the 2027 class.

There’s obviously still a lot to work out with Sorsby, but as of today, I’d slot him behind most of this group and place him as a 2027 second-round pick.

Arch Manning remains the consensus choice to be the first QB selected in the 2027 NFL Draft. (Photo by Kenneth Richmond/Getty Images)

Best NFL Team Fits

My best NFL lineup for Sorsby right now is a cross between Baker Mayfield and Jaxson Dart. This makes it suitable for several teams in the league. Among them: the Cardinals, Jets, Colts, Dolphins, Texans, Buccaneers, Ravens, Cowboys, Vikings and Steelers.