It’s been a long, long time since I wore shoulder pads. Eleven years, to be exact.

That changed last week.

I spent Thursday through Saturday in Lubbock, Texas, to attend Patrick Mahomes’ visit to his alma mater after Texas Tech signed a new deal with Adidas – whose clients include the Chiefs quarterback. But before Mahomes arrived on Friday to announce the signing of six Red Raider athletes to NIL contracts, a handful of media members and I had to complete a simulated recruiting visit.

Admittedly, I arrived a little after the campus tour due to some scheduling conflicts. When I arrived in town, the group was led through the vast hallways and club levels of Jones AT&T Stadium to the Red Raiders’ game day locker room. A locker was set up for each of us, complete with jersey, helmet, shoulder pads, pants, armbands, arm sleeve, socks and cleats.

Listen, the whole Road to Glory thing in EA Sports College Football 25 is cool, but getting your own locker in a Power Four stadium is the cherry on top.

I have to admit, it took me a few minutes to remember how tight the jersey and shoulder pad combo was. After wiggling around like a madwoman for a few minutes, I was finally able to put them on.

Also, no one told me that I had to be fit for this visit. Tough scene. Because of this discovery, my running program starts today.

After I squeezed into the uniform, we went to another room underneath the stadium where we were greeted by two of Texas Tech’s in-house photographers, complete with a Texas Tech/Adidas/Mahomes themed backdrop.

Whether I volunteered or was left out is beside the point. I was the first of the group to step to the backstage, where I was shown some of the most popular poses that recruits do during their visit with coach Joey McGuire and his staff – and yes, I even showed the Heisman to top it off.

After about 45 minutes of going through the media on site, we ventured onto the field where the West Texas heat blasted in our faces. With temperatures well over 100 degrees, I’m glad we weren’t getting ready to do any Oklahoma drills or start three games a day (although I think I had a few ghosts from my high school football days running through my mind).

There on the grass, we posed for a few more photos and threw the footballs we dug up from our first photo shoot across the field before heading back to the locker room to cool off.

As I took off my jersey and removed my shoulder pads for the day, I had one last thought: “When do the walk-on tryouts start??”

SBJ’s Ben Portnoy tried hard to work as a mock recruit for Texas Tech