Bet Texas Tech won’t do the right thing and send Sorsby to the NFL
This is what happens when presidents at the blueblood power schools of college sports, and their cagey conference commissioners, shrug their shoulders and look to government and the courts to set the tone.
Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby gambled on his sport, and his team (which used to be Indiana, in the 2022 season). Apparently before he was caught by cops, something got him to fess up in April. Admitted he had a problem. Promised to go through therapy, and did. That – and a local judge — was all it took to wipe his slate clean.
Sorsby’s stumbles – not isolated – only cost him whatever, if any, money he dropped. Instead of a permanent ban from NCAA sports, he got reinstated.
Monday, the home court advantage reared its head in college football. A Lubbock County judge ruled Sorsby can play this fall for the Red Raiders. The NCAA is appealing, but all four state Court of Appeals judges in Amarillo are Texas Tech law school grads.
As a countermeasure, the Big Ten Conference is reportedly going to consider a league-wide ban on playing Texas Tech – in all sports. And maybe not just in 2026-27. Georgia’s athletic department didn’t wait to act – the Bulldogs will not schedule any Red Raiders team.
Even schools in Texas Tech’s Big XII Conference are said to be talking about blackballing them.
It may get very lonely out on the west Texas plains. It should.
Sorsby admits he bet over $90,000 on college games in more than 9,000 wagers during his previous stops at Indiana and Cincinnati, including at least 40 bets on his Hoosiers team in the first half of the 2022 season. Amounts, small. Implications, broad.
“One of the harshest rules you can break, he did it, and he can still play. To me, this is one of the worst things I’ve seen in 20 years of coaching,” one unnamed football coach told The Athletic.
“I guess we can just gamble on our own team now and get away with it? That’s crazy,” said one all-conference Power 4 player.
“It speaks to the power of attorneys and politics and the lack of control the NCAA has over governance,” said one unidentified big-time coach. “Betting on your own teams or sport has always been a death penalty. But now it’s overlooked?”
Sorsby’s case is the latest in a long pattern of college sports gambling scandals going back decades. As a result, Sorsby’s betting and its acceptance by Texas Tech and a local judge puts a shroud over not just Red Raiders football, but every team, and every player when passes are dropped, balls are fumbled and tackles are missed. Fair effort, or did a player do less than his best to help shape a game’s outcome and benefit himself — and a bookie?
The senior quarterback is talented enough to take snaps at the next level. His NFL Draft valuation will climb if he plays well this fall in Lubbock – while getting a very hefty NIL package said to be around $5 million. Not a typo.
But is any authority figure, at Tech or in a judge’s robe in the shadows of the west Texas wind turbines, gutsy enough to do the right thing — not let him?
Coaches talk about accountability as a virtue, but there is none in this most important case. At some place, at some point, somebody needs to show some spine.
It appears the only route for Texas Tech to avoid being justifiably ostracized.
Athletic director Kirby Hocutt has stood behind Sorsby, who apparently just finished a monthlong inpatient rehab program for gambling addiction. That’s noble.
But Hocutt and the Red Raiders want no more consequences. Forgive and forget.
Problem is, nobody will forget. Nobody. When Sorsby airmails a receiver, or holds the ball too long and is sacked, it’s going to be very difficult not to wonder what he really meant to do.
Not just fans. But coaches, and teammates.
It was only a few months ago, not long before Sorsby’s gambling mess was revealed, that LSU’s Lane Kiffin was trying to get him to Tiger town from Cincinnati, where he starred in 2024-25, with what was said to be a $3.5 million NIL package.
Best deal the Portal King never closed.
Not saying Brendan Sorsby is beyond redemption. Wish him well.
But his second chance shouldn’t come in college. Not even when fanboy judges and win-at-all-costs boosters, administrators and coaches present him that path.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com