The Texas Tech Red Raiders agreed to the rules until they were inconvenient.<\/p>\n
Protecting an investment reported at nearly $6 million and trying to preserve its College Football Playoff hopes in 2026, the school backed a lawsuit against the NCAA that will allow scandal-plagued quarterback Brendan Sorsby to play this season even though he was ruled ineligible for wagering on college sports.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Sorsby won that lawsuit when a retired Tarrant County judge ruled in favor of the quarterback by issuing a preliminary injunction against the NCAA to allow the Indiana and Cincinnati transfer to play this season after serving a two-game suspension recommended by his attorneys.<\/p>\n
Keeping Sorbsy from playing this season would cause \u201cprobable, imminent and irreparable injury\u201d to Sorsby, judge Ken Curry ruled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no injury to the competitive integrity of the NCAA. It is what we proposed and what the NCAA should have accepted had it been true to its promises to prioritize the welfare of athletes,\u201d Sorsby\u2019s attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, told<\/a> ESPN.<\/p>\n Sorsby was ruled ineligible after placing about $90,000 worth of bets over four years, including betting on the Indiana team he played for in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201dThe NCAA strongly disagrees with the court\u2019s ruling in Sorsby\u2019s case and is deeply concerned about the damaging, far-reaching and broadly destabilizing ramifications of this outcome — which undermines and corrupts the integrity of sports. The NCAA is committed to supporting student-athlete mental health but must continue to aggressively defend against actions that defraud college athletics and threaten competitive integrity, such as betting on one\u2019s own sport,\u201d the NCAA said in a statement.<\/p>\n Texas Tech mega booster Cody Campbell blamed the system in his own self-serving assessment.<\/p>\n \u201cThis unfortunate situation is the outcome of a broken system,\u201d Campbell said<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m doing everything I can to fix it, but until there is a permanent solution, Texas Tech and its student athletes have to do the best they can to navigate and compete amid the chaos that exists in the reality of the world we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s ruling will continue college football down the path towards the inevitable and necessary destruction of the current system, but Tech circumventing the rules currently put in place is purely for its own short-term gains.<\/p>\n In the cutthroat, big-business world of college football, no one is asking for altruism here, but Tech pushing for the reinstatement of Sorsby\u2019s eligibility ignores the NCAA rules that the Red Raiders had agreed to abide by in a growing trend around the sport that has sparked public frustration from Longhorns athletics director Chris Del Conte and head football coach Steve Sarkisian.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all, as institutions, signed up to be part of the NCAA, and then we pass the rules that are put in place,\u201d Sarkisian noted<\/a> on Always College Football last week. \u201cThese are all the things that we sign up for, but we all right now are operating in a way to say, yeah, that\u2019s that rule, but I\u2019m just going to go do it anyway. And if somebody doesn\u2019t like it, I\u2019m just going to challenge whoever tries to say I broke the rule, and I\u2019m going to challenge it in a variety of ways \u2014 I\u2019m going to appeal, if I lose the appeal, I\u2019m going to go find a judge, I\u2019m going to get an injunction.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s all these things that are happening like that. \u2018I\u2019m just going to go break the rule, and if I don\u2019t like the consequences, I\u2019m going to go challenge it, and sooner or later the NCAA is going to quit fighting.\u2018 We can\u2019t keep operating like that. That\u2019s not a healthy way to live.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a healthy way to live, and the decision immediately sparked backlash against the Red Raiders.<\/p>\n