![\"LUBBOCK,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/b9db1d2f-515c-4d5e-95b3-60f84934115a.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nIf Brendan Sorsby is allowed to play quarterback for Texas Tech this season via injunction or some other manner of legal sorcery, it will represent the new standard for humiliation in America\u2019s all-out judicial assault on the NCAA rulebook.<\/p>\n
Even if you concede the validity of arguments around gambling addiction as an illness and that Sorsby\u2019s mental health would be better served by playing college football \u2014 arguments that Texas Tech and Sorsby\u2019s legal representation are making on his behalf \u2014 the behavior was so egregious that it\u2019s not really worth debate.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
After admitting to making thousands of bets worth more than $90,000, including some on teams he was playing for, three things should be self-evident: The NCAA was correct to rule him permanently ineligible, Sorsby should not play another down of college football and Texas Tech should be embarrassed as an institution that it has not already told him to leave campus immediately and never come back.<\/p>\n
This is simple, foundational stuff, and a suspension isn\u2019t going to cut it. Any other outcome than Judge Ken Curry upholding the NCAA\u2019s decision for a permanent ban opens the door to existential disaster \u2014 not just for college sports but perhaps all sports. If a line cannot be drawn here when it comes to college athletes gambling on college sports, can it really be drawn anywhere?<\/p>\n
Merely given the facts that are now public, the attempt to salvage Sorsby\u2019s college career should shock the senses. Instead, it seems like business as usual in the systemic picking apart of the NCAA rulebook from within, aided and abetted by the schools that claim to want order.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby shouts during a Red Raider basketball game on Jan. 24.<\/p>\n
(John E. Moore III via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
How did it get this way? Where did people in college sports get the idea that it was OK to mangle the rulebook \u2014 not because they believe the rules are inherently or morally wrong but because of a momentary imperative to win?<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
There are flashpoints that led to this inevitable race to the bottom, but the one I keep coming back to happened nearly 16 years ago \u2014 a sliding doors moment the NCAA has paid for almost every day since.<\/p>\n
Yes, looking back, the $180,000 figure attached to Cam Newton and the greatest individual season in college football history now seems quaint. What would a talent like Newton have been worth on the open, mostly unregulated NIL market in 2026? $5 million? $7 million? Heck, $20 million wouldn\u2019t have been unreasonable given the national title he almost single-handedly delivered for Auburn that season.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s possible for two things to be true at once: NCAA rules that prohibited someone like Newton from being paid his market value were unjust AND creating loopholes in those rules so Newton wouldn\u2019t get pulled off the field in the midst of a Heisman Trophy run and championship season was a Pandora\u2019s Box that accelerated the culture of using legal threats for schools to reverse an outcome they don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n