Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire generated a news item during spring practice when he said wide receiver Micah Hudson played last season as a walk-on.
In one traditional sense, yes. Hudson wasn’t on scholarship. But being non-scholarship with the 2025 Red Raiders might have come with less of a financial burden on Hudson than for generations of walk-ons.
McGuire shed more light on his circumstances during a speaking engagement a couple of weeks later.
“Micah Hudson was a walk-on last year,” McGuire said at a Red Raider Club event in Amarillo. “Now, we shared NIL with him to where he could pay his tuition and everything, but Micah Hudson came back to Texas Tech as a walk-on, and I think it’s going to be an incredible story when it’s all said and done.”
McGuire said Hudson went back on scholarship for the spring semester. He also worked with the starting lineup in spring practice.
Hudson was a national top-25 recruit coming out of Temple Lake Belton in 2024. He’s caught only eight passes in each of his first two seasons with the Red Raiders. He transferred to Texas A&M after his freshman year, though, then quickly reconsidered and asked to come back.
McGuire said he imposed two conditions for Hudson’s return: For the 2025 season, he wouldn’t get to wear jersey No. 1, already assigned to wide receiver Reggie Virgil, and he’d be non-scholarship.
Texas Tech likely has several players who are non-scholarship but with NIL revenue sharing money.
Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt described that alternative in August 2024. The NCAA v. House settlement that went into effect in July 2025 capped football rosters at 105, all of whom could be on scholarship. Tech stayed at 85 scholarships, the NCAA limit from 1992 until the House settlement.
“You could give a full scholarship, plus whatever revenue-share percentage … ,” Hocutt said in 2024. “Or you could give your 86th football player on your roster no scholarship, but we’re going to give you a revenue share of $30,000 and that should cover your tuition, fees, books, board at Texas Tech, but you’re going to have to pay your own scholarship bill.”
Hocutt said, taking into account Title IX considerations, it “may be more advantageous to give revenue share rather than an academic scholarship.”
Texas Tech lists its annual cost of attendance for in-state undergraduate students as $29,783, of which $11,852 is tuition and fees.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: How Texas Tech football’s Micah Hudson was a rev-share era walk-on
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
