5-star OT Ojo picks Texas Tech, lands $5M+ deal

Five-star violative tackle Felix Ojo, No. 20 successful the 2026 ESPN 300, committed to Texas Tech connected Friday upon signing a historic, seven-figure gross stock declaration with the Red Raiders, his cause Derrick Shelby of Prestige Management told ESPN.

Ojo, a 6-foot-7, 285-pound imaginable from Mansfield, Texas, is ESPN's No. 4 violative tackle and second-ranked enlistee from the authorities of Texas successful the 2026 class. He chose Texas Tech implicit finalists Florida, Michigan, Ohio State and Texas pursuing a slate of authoritative visits this spring. If helium signs with the Red Raiders aboriginal this year, Ojo volition get arsenic the program's highest-ranked summation since ESPN began ranking precocious schoolhouse prospects successful the 2006 recruiting cycle.

Per Shelby, Ojo is acceptable to articulation Texas Tech connected a afloat guaranteed, three-year, $5.1 cardinal contract.

The woody is believed to beryllium 1 of the largest afloat guaranteed gross stock agreements successful assemblage shot past nether the recently approved national settlement that allows assemblage programs to wage their athletes directly. Ojo's woody present rivals the lucrative, multiyear package top-ranked 2026 violative tackle Jackson Cantwell secured with Miami earlier this year, which sources archer ESPN volition gain the nation's No. 3 wide imaginable much than $2 cardinal annually with incentives.

"Football is simply a brutal athletics and athletes are not capable to play professionally until their graduating people has been successful assemblage 3 years," Shelby told ESPN. "It was important to beryllium capable to unafraid Felix Ojo's aboriginal and springiness him and his household immoderate information arsenic helium continues to make into a archetypal circular NFL draught pick."

Ojo's statement with Texas Tech marks the school's latest determination successful a drawstring of important expenditures implicit the past year.

ESPN's Max Olson reported successful February that the Red Raiders spent much than $10 cardinal connected 17 caller players successful the wintertime transportation portal model past December. All told, Texas Tech made 21 portal additions portion assembling the nation's second-ranked transportation class this offseason.

The Red Raiders besides made waves past summertime erstwhile the Matador Club, the school's NIL collection, helped Texas Tech's softball programme onshore transportation phenom NiJaree Canady from Stanford connected a one-year, $1,050,024 deal. Canady, who is besides represented by Shelby, signed different seven-figure contract with the Matador Club past period aft starring the Red Raiders to their first-ever Women's College World Series quality and a nationalist runner-up decorativeness successful her debut play with the program.

A multi-year starter astatine Texas' Lake Ridge High School and 1 of the nation's apical violative enactment prospects, Ojo marks a seismic recruiting triumph for Texas Tech caput manager Joey McGuire and the Red Raiders.

Ojo volition articulation Texas Tech successful 2026 arsenic the program's archetypal five-star signee since wide receiver Micah Hudson successful 2024.

Ojo's database of authoritative visits this outpouring included stops astatine Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Utah and Texas on with the Red Raiders anterior to his pledge. Sources archer ESPN that Texas and Utah were among the programs that offered Ojo the astir important gross stock contracts successful the last stages of his recruitment.

Ojo represents Texas Tech's archetypal ESPN 300 summation among 18 prospects committed to the programme successful the 2026 cycle, a radical that includes 13 in-state pledges. He lands arsenic a cornerstone perpetrate successful a Red Raiders violative enactment people that besides features a brace of outpouring pledges successful three-star violative defender Jerald Mays and violative tackle Jacob Crow.