\u201cThat\u2019s some bull—-,\u201d says one animated coach. \u201cThere\u2019s not one coach, one player, that does not walk into a college football team on the very first day where you\u2019re told, Don\u2019t bet on it. Bottom line, don\u2019t bet on it and Title IX, everybody learns about that first day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should not have been allowed to play [by the judge]. Whether it\u2019s Brendan Sorsby or John Smith, that\u2019s not right,\u201d one ACC coach says. \u201cJust like with tampering and the Ole Miss coach and Dabo [Swinney], there should be consequences. But there\u2019s not any of that right now in the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, if there was a common sentiment from the entire saga that coaches understood well, the lack of enforcement around fairly obvious rules was chief among them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several pointed out that this is not limited to the Sorsby case amid ongoing complaints about the College Sports Commission and the lack of progress the NCAA has made on tampering investigations. But for most, the ability to find a local judge and garner a favorable ruling surrounding a player seems to have ushered in a new meaning to the wild, wild west conditions most have been operating under these last few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a total failure of college football and the NCAA overall,\u201d says one Big 12 coach. \u201cWhat are we doing now? We just said everything goes. It just doesn\u2019t make any sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you walk into your players and say, \u2018You\u2019ve got to follow these rules.\u2019 And then you just give people outs when they don\u2019t follow the rules,\u201d says a coach from the ACC. \u201cWe\u2019re in an interesting place in our game and that was one of those interesting moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just about every coach acknowledged that they addressed the Sorsby story with their own players, and conference offices across the country continue to provide additional resources in terms of education on the subject in addition to the stringent monitoring they do with integrity firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not one coach, however, expressly said they brought in a guest speaker to discuss the perils of gambling this offseason as most focused on making sure their own teams knew what is firmly in the rule book.<\/p>\n
\u201cNine thousand bets, that\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d laments a veteran coach. \u201cYou\u2019ve got DraftKings and all these apps on the phone and it\u2019s so easy for kids to place a bet. So you\u2019re always having to educate them on gambling and all the risks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was going to be a really hard message to tell my guys, you can gamble on your team and have no punishment,\u201d says another. \u201cThere\u2019s a zillion reasons why that is the third rail. You never touch that and it\u2019s the one thing everyone can agree on. I think that is the most difficult part, trying to explain that we\u2019re accountable for our actions but, well, not really in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vast majority of head coaches who spoke to SI were quite critical of Sorsby and the Texas Tech administration for pushing as hard as they did to make him eligible to play this season. Several cited the school\u2019s board chairman, booster Cody Campbell, as being particularly problematic in turning a fairly straightforward story into a drama that ran nonstop this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the same, there was a subset of coaches\u2014particularly in the Big 12\u2014who did commiserate with Red Raiders counterpart Joey McGuire for handling things as best he could given the difficult situation of trying to show they were advocating for one of their players. Several more even felt quite a bit of sympathy for the QB\u2014even while recognizing how wrong he was to have crossed a line you don\u2019t go near in the first place.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel for that kid, because now the rest of his life is going to be impacted by the situation. I respect him because I feel like he didn\u2019t run from it. He didn\u2019t dodge it, he owned it. But at the end of the day, too, it\u2019s not right either,\u201d says one coach. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re helping the situation, by the way, with how we\u2019re promoting gambling and all that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe argument that he bet so much that he ought to have been allowed to play was a bit of a strange argument. Even with one bet, the integrity of sporting events is what makes them watchable. If Sorsby [had played], it would have opened a really bad can of worms,\u201d says a Big 12 coach. \u201cI was surprised Tech chose to die on that sword. That didn\u2019t make a lot of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Far clearer was the ultimate resolution, with Sorsby essentially spending the entire coming season out of football<\/a> after he withdrew his lawsuit against the NCAA and was subsequently denied entry into the NFL supplemental draft. A handful of coaches who had either played or coached in the league were not surprised that there was a firmer hand applied to the situation from NFL headquarters, with one joking it might be one of the few times he\u2019s agreed on something football-related with commissioner Roger Goodell.\u00a0<\/p>\n Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, there were also a few who viewed the entire episode a little more myopically and expressed fewer qualms over potentially playing Sorsby this fall if he had taken the field.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he had been allowed to play, I think as a staff we would have been like, \u2018F— it, let\u2019s play,\u2019 \u201d says one Big 12 coach. \u201cBut it would have been up to [my athletic director] and [my school president] to sort out. I don\u2019t think they would have viewed it the same.\u201d<\/p>\n A Big 12 athletic director from a different school said as much and relayed that they wouldn\u2019t be surprised if, quietly, some schools may follow in the footsteps of Georgia and Nebraska in refraining from scheduling any nonconference games with Texas Tech moving forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Red Raiders, for the most part, are at least not living in denial that the broader college football world remains seething over their actions, even weeks removed from the Sorsby story finally moving off the front page and the arrival of training camp just days away from getting underway in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a target on our back. I thought there was a target on our back last year with what we did in the portal,\u201d McGuire says. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a target on our back with the situation we have with our quarterback. It really is us against everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n On that, he is very much spot on.<\/p>\n More College Football From Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n Listen to SI\u2019s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>. Watch the show on SI\u2019s College YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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