Bubba Thompson is officially calling it a career after seven years of Major League Baseball with the Texas Rangers and Cincinnati Reds. He will instead play college football at South Alabama as a 26-year-old walk-on quarterback.
Jaguars head coach Major Applewhite confirmed the unusual addition to his roster after a video surfaced on social media earlier this week.
Thompson, who will turn 27 in June, was drafted No. 26 overall in the 2017 MLB Draft out of McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile, Ala. Although he decided to pursue a professional career in baseball, he also received multiple offers to play football in college.
The 6-foot-2, 197-pound quarterback was rated as a three-star prospect in the college football recruiting Class of 2017. Thompson threw for 3,173 yards and 38 touchdowns as a senior and led the Yellow Jackets to the Class 7A state championship game alongside NFL wide receiver Jalen Tolbert.
Troy, Memphis, Ole Miss, Western Kentucky and UCF wanted Thompson to play football. However, he was at one point committed to play college baseball at both Auburn and then Alabama. Neither school got him on campus because of his status as a first round pick in the MLB Draft.
Bubba Thompson went from football to baseball back to football!
Thompson played his way up through the minor leagues from 2017 to 2022. Texas finally selected his contract and called him up to the Bigs for his MLB debute on August 4, 2022. He hit .241 with 13 RBIs in 241 plate appearances in 92 games over two years with the Rangers.
That was the peak of Thompson’s career in MLB. The next two years, with the Reds and Royals, saw a pretty significant drop-off in terms of batting average. Cincinnati relegated him to Double-A last season.
With baseball behind him, Bubba Thompson is recalibrating. The former Major League outfielder was back in his hometown earlier this week and posted a video on campus at South Alabama. He was throwing a football at the Jaguars’ indoor practice facility.
Applewhite later confirmed to AL.com that Thompson is going to join the team for offseason workouts and spring practice as a walk-on. It is a trial run to start because South Alabama already has three quarterbacks on the roster in Gio Lopez, Bishop Davenport and Jared Hollins. The former Major Leaguer could be a depth piece down the road depending on his performance over the next few months!