Brendan Sorsby should not play another college football game.
His character can be questioned and debated. It is a matter of subjective interpretation.
His poor decision-making and lack of wisdom compelled the 22-year-old, who has an insatiable compulsion for gambling, to place bets on college football games in which his teams were playing. In late April, Texas Tech announced that Sorsby, who had transferred to the public university located in Lubbock, Texas, after playing for the University of Cincinnati the previous two seasons, was taking an indefinite leave of absence to enter a residential treatment center to address a gambling addiction.
Sorsby, a native of Dallas suburb Corinth, Texas, began his collegiate career at Indiana University as a freshman in 2022 before transferring to Cincinnati after two seasons playing for the Hoosiers. He was considered the top player in the NCAA transfer portal this past winter and signed a reported $5 million deal with Texas Tech, coming to the school as a potential top-10 pick in next year’s NFL Draft.
But now his future playing in the league is murky after court filings revealed Sorsby had placed thousands of bets totaling at least $90,000, dozens of which alarmingly were on his own team while a freshman.
The details of the extent of Sorsby’s gambling came about as a result of court filings prior to a hearing last month in his lawsuit to have the NCAA restore his eligibility — which shockingly, Texas District Court Judge Ken Curry did on Monday.
Judge Curry’s ruling superseded the NCAA’s gambling guideline, adopted by the Division I legislative Committee in 2023, which bans any player who bets on their own games.
“I think that’s a slippery slope when you go down that, irrespective of talent, right?” said Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken nearly two weeks ago in response to a question about whether the Browns would select Sorsby in the supplemental draft. For now, that’s moot if Curry’s ruling stands on appeal, which the NCAA filed Monday.
Then there’s the question of whether the influence of Cody Campbell, the billionaire CEO of Double Eagle Energy Holdings and one of the most prominent boosters in all of college sports, impacted this implausible decision. Campbell was a four-year letterman for the Texas Tech Red Raiders from 2001-04 playing on the offensive line. He has pumped over $100 million into the program, fueling its rise as a football power.
Campbell, the chairman of the board of the Texas Tech University system’s board of regents, ironically also holds the title of senior member of President Trump’s Blue Ribbon Council on College Sports and is the founder of the non-profit organization Saving College Sports. He is deeply entrenched in Texas and national Republican political circles.
Texas Tech has invested heavily in Sorsby and his ability to be the key to winning the College Football Playoff national championship next season after making the quarterfinals last year. But Campbell’s crusade to “fix college sports” — a phrase commonly used by those who are hypocritically responsible for its current economic system, including him — a system that ultimately may be regulated through federal legislation, should lead by example by supporting the NCAA’s ban of Sorsby.
