Confronted with $90,000 worth of impermissible wagers at three different schools, Sorsby spent a month at a gambling treatment facility. He offered to take a two-game suspension, which is like putting in a $100,000 offer on a million-dollar house. Now he\u2019s hoping a judge will completely undermine NCAA bylaws because, on paper, Tech is one good quarterback away from national championship contention.<\/p>\n
![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/01kt52h9rjmz0pxq5njc.jpg\" "\\"Texas")
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Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby goes through warmups before the spring football game in April. | Nathan Giese\/Avalanche-Journal \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Tech president Lawrence Schovanec wrote a letter to the school community advocating for Sorsby\u2019s eligibility to be restored<\/a>. It included this gem: \u201cThe NCAA bylaws governing Brendan\u2019s case have not adapted to the era of widespread legalized sports betting that this generation of college athletes now has to navigate.\u201d Sounds good, until you factor in that Schovanec\u2019s school voted last fall to rescind what would have been more permissive NCAA gambling legislation<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n A court ruling on Sorsby\u2019s injunction request could come at any time. If Sorsby wins, the backlash in college football will be audible from coast to coast.<\/p>\n Tech vs. handshake lines<\/p>\n Wednesday night, Texas Tech and Texas begin play in the Women\u2019s College World Series championship round, a rematch of last year\u2019s final won by the Longhorns. The Red Raiders\u2019 route back to this spot went through the Southeastern Conference\u2014a super-regional victory at Florida, then WCWS victories over Mississippi State and Alabama and a loss to Tennessee. Feelings were bruised along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n The freest softball spenders in the NIL market brought in star transfers from both Florida and Tennessee.<\/p>\n Mia Williams arrived from Florida and hit decisive home runs against her old team. She was also plunked multiple times by pitches. That escalated tensions in the stands, where Williams\u2019s father, former Florida basketball star Jason, was making a spectacle of himself by taunting Gators fans<\/a>. He was ejected but allowed to return, and wound up on the field addressing the Tech team after they won the series.<\/p>\n In the WCWS, a she-said\/she-said imbroglio erupted after the Texas Tech\u2013Tennessee game, with former Vol Taylor Pannell accusing Tennessee coach Karen Weekly of telling her in the postgame handshake line that she made a mistake by transferring. Weekly called that \u201can outright lie,\u201d and video of the handshake line seems to confirm the coach\u2019s version of events.<\/p>\n Pannell\u2019s father, Brandon, reportedly fired off several shots on X after that controversy<\/a>, then deleted them. (If there is one thing we need less of from Texas Tech softball, it\u2019s parental grandstanding. Some dads seem to think they\u2019re the stars of the show when they\u2019re not even in the cast. Let your daughters handle it.)<\/p>\n Tech vs. trash talk<\/p>\n Karma did its part in promoting Tech Week by pitting the Red Raiders against the Longhorns in the WCWS final. This has become a proxy battle for a dormant-but-volcanic football feud, the kind that simmers constantly in the Lone Star State.<\/p>\n More than a few Texas Tech fans reveled in making the 2025\u201326 College Football Playoff while almighty Texas sat that one out. (As in softball, Tech\u2019s football rise is attributable to money-whipping the competition in the transfer portal.) Longhorns fans, in return, scoffed at Tech\u2019s schedule\u2014both last year and this coming year. Horns coach Steve Sarkisian took it a step further at a booster event in Houston last month.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a team in our state, in another conference, with a schedule that I would argue, if I played with our twos and threes [second and third teams], we could go undefeated,\u201d Sark said. \u201cAnd they\u2019ll probably make the CFP this year.\u201d<\/p>\n That led to a great puffing out of Red Raider chests. Coach Joey McGuire declared at Big 12 spring meetings last week, \u201cIf they want to play Week 1, then we\u2019re ready. We would love to play the University of Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n Easier said than done, of course, with schedules already set. McGuire ruminated on both teams buying out their opening opponents\u2014Tech is playing Abilene Christian, Texas is playing Texas State\u2014to pave the way. Then the previously mentioned billionaire, former Tech football player Cody Campbell, piped up\u2014certainly not for the first time, nor for the last\u2014by declaring that Tech (meaning himself) would pay both buyouts to facilitate the game, in either Lubbock or AT&T Stadium in Arlington.<\/p>\n Upping the ante: @TechAthletics<\/a> will pay the buyout for both the ACU and Texas State games. Let\u2019s go!!! @CoachSark<\/a> @_delconte<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/IX637eSYmX<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Cody Campbell (@CodyC64) May 28, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n This prompted some Longhorns fan to commence a qui\u00e9n es m\u00e1s macho war of words on X last Friday, challenging Campbell to \u201can Oklahoma Drill. Name the time and place.\u201d (For the uninitiated, an Oklahoma Drill is a one-on-one, brute-force football trench battle.) Campbell declared that he would accept the invitation in his backyard, that night. The posturing eventually ended with Campbell declaring<\/a>, \u201cAll I need is a Miller Lite and a jock strap. Bring it!\u201d<\/p>\n If this seems like crass talk from the chairman of the Texas Tech board of regents and co-founder of Double Eagle Energy, welcome to the South Plains. It certainly fits in well with the current WWE style of governance in America, which is also an agenda item in Tech Week.<\/p>\n Tech vs. the future of college sports<\/p>\n A U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning, part of the effort by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to pass the \u201cProtect College Sports Act,\u201d bipartisan legislation that they introduced last week.<\/p>\n The lineup of witnesses for the hearing include Nick Saban, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua and Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould. The unseen guiding hand in the background belongs to Campbell, whose fingerprints are on the legislation. He has powerful allies in Cruz and, to some extent, President Donald Trump, who has leaned on Campbell for guidance in navigating college sports issues.<\/p>\n Part of the bill, over strident objections from the two most powerful conferences in the country, the Big Ten and the SEC, is the potential for a pooling of media rights among leagues. That would level the playing field for schools in the ACC and Big 12\u2014including Texas Tech. Naturally, Campbell is the person pushing hardest for it.<\/p>\n Campbell made ripples last fall by buying advertising airtime during college football games to promote his \u201cSave College Sports\u201d agenda and has maintained the pressure since then. This week, that group sent a letter to lawmakers<\/a> ahead of the hearing. (One problem: LSU president Wade Rousse, whose name is on the letter, says he never signed on to it.)<\/p>\n When not posturing on X, Campbell is the most prominent voice pushing for substantive changes in college sports. That prominence seemed to happen overnight last year, as the former offensive lineman at Tech embarked with missionary zeal to become a major player in that realm. With the swagger of a gunslinger bursting through the swinging doors of an old South Plains saloon, he\u2019s throwing his weight (and wallet) around.<\/p>\n That includes firing back at the Big 12 for moving the Tech-Houston football game this fall to a Friday night, which interferes with the unofficial state religion of high school ball. Campbell called out commissioner (and native New Yorker) Brett Yormark for that. Yormark responded by telling the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, \u201cCody Campbell does not run the Big 12.\u201d<\/p>\n Campbell, in response, on X<\/a>: \u201cApparently Brett didn\u2019t get the memo. EVERYTHING RUNS THROUGH LUBBOCK!!\u201d<\/p>\n This is the current mindset at Texas Tech, where the upstarts are making a push in the always-competitive Most Obnoxious Fan Base in Texas race. The Lone Star State is the most contentious place in the football universe when it comes to one-upping thy neighbors, even when the takeover attempts by have-nots tend to end badly. (See: SMU in the 1980s, Baylor in the 2010s.)<\/p>\n The Red Raiders are taking their swings. America is taking notice. And taking sides. Here in the middle of Texas Tech Week, it\u2019s them against all y\u2019all. And they love it.<\/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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