Wholesome footage reemerges of Texas Tech’s kicker recruited from the stands amid chaos of $2 billion college transfer portal
Remember the old days of college football before NIL, the transfer portal, and conference realignment?
The days when college football was about tradition—following a team’s journey and its players over multiple years, enjoying the quirky, heartwarming stories that set the sport apart from the NFL.
It wasn’t just wealthy oilmen and deep-pocketed boosters buying up all the top talent, with reportedly over $2 billion spent on rosters and transfers across the country.
It feels like eons ago, but there was a time when that actually existed.
And one of the most wholesome stories from the old days of college football, of course, involved one of its biggest and brightest personalities: Mike Leach.
Old footage has resurfaced on social media from 2008, when Leach was Texas Tech’s head coach and discovered his next kicker during a halftime promotional kicking contest.
The Red Raiders ran a promotion where a student from the stands was invited to attempt a 30-yard field goal during a game and Matt Williams was ready for his moment.
Williams, an education major and just a student at the time (though he had been a kicker in high school), didn’t let that stop him from drilling the kick.
He nailed it and thought his prize was having his rent covered for the month. That wasn’t quite the case.
It turned out his “prize” was a spot on the football team. Williams impressed the Red Raiders enough to earn a walk-on invitation, and with Texas Tech struggling on field goals at the time, it wasn’t unrealistic to think he could see action in actual games.
“We didn’t anticipate having to go that direction,” Leach said. “I’ve already seen him kick a 30-yard field goal in front of 55,000 people.”
After the 2008 season, in which Williams went 2-for-3 on field goals and a perfect 33-for-33 on extra points, he became the Red Raiders’ starting place kicker for the next two seasons.
When it was all said and done after the 2010 season, Williams had become one of the most reliable kickers in Texas Tech history, hitting 149 of 150 extra points and 22 of 28 field goals.
Those were the old days, when Leach could just look into the Jones AT&T Stadium stands and find his next kicker, who had just nailed a 30-yard promotional field goal for free rent.
Leach’s scouting report was famously brief: “Go get that guy. Stick him in the pile.”
There was no arms race, no tampering, no millions being thrown in front of a kid’s face, and no active recruiting of one player from program to program.
(On the surface, of course—Google “Ed Orgeron bag man.”)
The most ironic part is that the “free rent” prize Williams won, he eventually had to forfeit in order to stay eligible at the time.
Fast forward to today, and all of that has been replaced by a $2 billion-plus gold mine.
And Texas Tech has been front in line, leading the charge over the course of the last two seasons.
As the winter transfer portal reaches its fever pitch, the Red Raiders found their answer at quarterback. It didn’t come from a promotional contest, but through a historic reported $5 million NIL deal to land star transfer Brendan Sorsby.
The Sorsby deal is more than just a signing; it’s a market reset.
Reports indicate Sorsby will earn more in a single college season than the majority of NFL first-round draft picks will see in their rookie year.
His reported one-year deal alone is worth more than Shedeur Sanders’ entire four-year rookie contract, which totaled $4.6 million.
The contrast highlights a sport that has evolved from a quirky meritocracy into a high-stakes corporate arms race.
The “Free Rent” kicker and the “$5 Million Man” represent two different centuries of Red Raider history, and college football as a whole.
But as the portal chaos continues to spin, one thing remains certain: in Lubbock, if you can put the ball through the uprights or into the end zone, they’ll find a way to get you “into the pile.”
Rest in peace Mike Leach, you would have crushed the NIL era.
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