I left for a quick getaway in the middle of this week to finally see a show at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver. 

My hope was that the temperature of the Brendan Sorsby discussion would come down a bit in the two days I was gone. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. 

This entire debate over the judge’s ruling, Sorsby himself, the integrity of the game, Texas Tech’s role, and the Big 12’s reaction is one that desperately requires nuance and context. 

Instead, in a world that moves 280 characters at a time, it has predictably turned into what everything turns into in 2026: a tribal culture war.

Nobody can step back and control their emotions long enough to respond instead of react. Nobody will consider the other point of view or how somebody else may have arrived at a different conclusion. Nobody will acknowledge that life is messy, the truth often lives in a gray area, and multiple things can be true at once.

That’s not going to be my approach. 

My thoughts on how the situation has evolved aren’t going to make Texas Tech fans happy. They also aren’t going to make Texas Tech haters happy. 

Let’s start with the Red Raiders’ role in all of this. It’s essentially Texas Tech vs. Everybody (print the t-shirts), a role that the Red Raiders are all too familiar with. 

Texas Tech did not file Sorsby’s lawsuit. The Red Raiders did not fund the lawsuit. Judge Ken Curry, who granted Sorsby a temporary injunction that keeps the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility ban, is not from Lubbock and didn’t graduate from Texas Tech.

This was not a case of a school finding a proud graduate to do the football program a solid at the expense of justice, as many have insinuated.

Plenty of people in the college football world have been frothing at the mouth, waiting to pounce on the Red Raiders for something like this. Tech has unfairly become the poster child of the NIL and transfer portal era to an army of media, administrators, and fans who hate what college sports have become. 

The Red Raiders also ruffled feathers in the Big 12 by unapologetically blowtorching their way to a conference title last year and then taking some of the best players from across the league in the transfer portal. 

There is absolutely pent-up jealousy and rage directed at Tech right now from all corners of the college sports world that has nothing to do with Sorsby himself.

This also isn’t the first time, and won’t be the last, that the media and fans push each other in a ridiculous social media contest to see who can project the most outrage. It’s annoying, and when it’s mostly directed at you, it’s infuriating. 

I don’t blame Texas Tech fans at all for pointing that out.  

But that doesn’t mean the jealous and angry mob is fundamentally wrong. 

Sorsby shouldn’t be able to play. Full stop. 

All sports have long drawn a hard line at betting on your own team for clear and obvious integrity reasons. Yes, I know the NCAA found that Sorsby himself wasn’t affecting the outcomes of the games he was betting on, but this is a hard line for a reason.

Once you allow one person to avoid a serious punishment for betting on his own games, you open the door for the next guy to push the line a little further. And there’s no turning back once you let it go too far, and the public loses trust in the integrity of games. 

You have to draw the line somewhere, and we decided long ago that betting on your own games is the line. Nobody had a problem with that standard. Texas Tech fans were not complaining about the NCAA’s rules on betting on your own team in January.

In a just world, Sorsby would be facing at least a season-long suspension. But it’s also not Texas Tech’s fault that he isn’t. Blame Judge Curry and decades of NCAA incompetence for that. 

It would certainly be nice if Tech didn’t play Sorsby in order to protect the sanctity of the rules and the game. UCF AD Terry Mohajir suggested UCF wouldn’t play him if it were in the Red Raiders’ shoes. But college football has never been about the moral high ground.

I think the overwhelming majority of Power Four schools would do the same thing if they were in Tech’s shoes. The SEC certainly can’t say with a straight face that Texas Tech should bench Sorsby. And I imagine you’ll recall the integrity issues that Michigan overlooked while winning a national championship in 2023. 

That doesn’t mean I haven’t rolled my eyes a time or two at the sentiment that the Red Raiders’ only options are to play him as much as possible or completely abandon him.

Posturing like Tech is completely taking the moral high ground by allowing him to play is disingenuous. The Red Raiders could absolutely allow Sorsby to stay around the team, stay on scholarship, use their mental health and medical resources, and even help him prepare for an NFL career without actually having him play a football game. 

I don’t doubt that McGuire and Hocutt love Sorsby and want the best for him. But we all know they desperately want to win, too. 

The message from Texas Tech should simply be: “We think it’s best for Brendan’s recovery if he stays in Lubbock. It’s certainly best for us if he plays. Right now, the law says he can play, so we’re going to play him.”

Nothing more, nothing less. 

That means no more of McGuire’s “it’s not murder, it’s not beating somebody” whataboutism. That was another major eye-roll moment for me. 

When a cop pops someone for a DUI, should an effective defense for reducing the punishment by more than 80% be, “Hey, at least it wasn’t murder”?

Sorsby knew the rules. He knew the consequences. He shouldn’t be wiggling out of doing the time because other people have committed worse offenses in the eyes of the law.

And let’s not minimize what happened here. This was not a minor offense. Sorsby made at least 9,000 bets for over $90,000 that were against NCAA rules. He bet on his own team at least 40 times. He sent over $65,000 to other people to place bets for him. Much of this happened while he was under the legal age to place a sports bet. 

Plus, as I’ve already outlined, anything getting this close to disrupting the integrity of the game threatens the viability of the game. As morally reprehensible as some other past college offenses have been, they haven’t done that. 

The Big 12 is currently deciding whether to sanction the Red Raiders if they play Sorsby, which would inevitably lead to more lawsuits. There was even talk of Big 12 teams refusing to play Texas Tech.

Look, it’s not financially viable for the league to boycott playing Texas Tech. Of all of the Power Four leagues, the Big 12 can least afford to tell its TV partners that games with its most recognizable national brand at the moment won’t be played. 

Deeming Tech ineligible for the Big 12 championship game if Sorsby plays would be a step down from that, but we know the Red Raiders will sue if it happens. High-profile college sports attorney Tom Mars seems to think the Big 12 would win that, but at what cost? And how long would it take?

I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze. Even if the Big 12 stood its ground on the principle of maintaining the sport’s hardline stance on betting on your own team, a stance that I agree with, that’s not going to stop the next school embroiled in a similar situation from letting its guy play. 

And that goes back to the point of what Sorsby is doing in the first place. College football has always been about bending, stretching, and flat-out breaking the rules as much as you can for the sake of winning. That isn’t going to change anytime soon. 

What has to change is the ability of the NCAA, or whatever governing body eventually replaces it, to enforce rules. Any rules. Until that happens, college sports will be at the whim of any judge, anywhere. 

This is fundamentally not a Texas Tech problem. It’s an NCAA problem.

And I hate the entire situation for everyone involved. 

Texas Tech fans didn’t ask for this. They’ve been looked down upon for decades by Texas and Texas A&M and dealt with the rise of in-state rivals Baylor and TCU in the 2010s, before finally getting their current moment in the sun. 

When their program finally reached new heights, it was met by a chorus of anger and resentment from the entire sport. 

Tech fans come by the chip on their shoulder honestly.

Now, poised to contend for a deep playoff run, their star quarterback gets embroiled in a scandal for things Tech had no idea about that mostly happened at other schools.

That absolutely sucks. 

And can we talk about Sorsby himself for a moment? While he recovers from an addiction, college football is fighting a culture war with him as the avatar. He’s going to be the most villainized character in the sport this year, with 99% of fans rooting for him, or at least his team, to fail.

Actions have consequences, but I do have empathy for him right now. 

Any hope of a harmonious period for the Big 12 is out the window, too. Tensions between the league and Texas Tech have been building since tortillagate, and this week threw another gallon of gas on that fire. 

It’s just one of many fires burning across college football right now, which looks like it’s the Woodstock 99 campground on Sunday night.

What You Need to Know

• Here’s what Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark says came out of his discussion today with the executive committee of league presidents. 

• Sorsby’s lawyer has already sent the Big 12 a letter outlining legal action if the league decides to sanction or punish Texas Tech. 

• The Big Ten issued a final ruling on whether or not its schools will be able to schedule Texas Tech in light of the Brendan Sorsby ruling. 

• Senator Ted Cruz says he thinks he can get enough votes for the Protect College Sports Act, even without the SEC and Big Ten’s support.

• Want your Big 12 news and analysis in podcast form? Listen to Open For Business at the gym, in your car, or first thing in the morning on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

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