Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby’s college football career might be over after it was announced Monday that the NCAA is investigating “thousands” of online bets made by Sorsby. He is also checking into a residential treatment program for gambling addiction. 

ESPN and On3 report that Sorsby bet on Indiana football as a redshirt freshman with the Hoosiers in 2022. And that is likely the most damning part of the story for his eligibility. 

Former Iowa State QB Hunter Dekkers was ruled permanently ineligible by the NCAA after he bet on one ISU football game, which doesn’t bode well for Sorsby’s future. 

The NCAA is very clear about its strict policy against any type of gambling on amateur or professional sports, and it isn’t shy about letting players know.

Still, with the massive proliferation of sports gambling across the country over the last decade, stories like this are bound to continue to happen in college football. 

I could write an entire column about the myriad issues facing sports leagues now that gambling is everywhere, especially with so many leagues and the outlets covering them making money from sports books.

As it pertains to this instance, if the reporting on Sorsby betting on Indiana games is true, the NCAA has plenty of incentive to come down hard.

One of the biggest problems with sports gambling being everywhere is maintaining the public belief that the outcomes of games aren’t fixed. That means drawing a hard line on any player betting on his own team’s games.

I genuinely hope Sorsby gets help. Gambling addictions can absolutely ruin lives. And credit to him for entering treatment and to Texas Tech for supporting him. 

But I won’t blame the NCAA at all if Sorsby is deemed ineligible. There are more than enough things to criticize the NCAA for. This isn’t one of them.

If Sorsby does get help, he still has a bright future ahead of him. He was already considering the NFL before landing in Lubbock. He should have an NFL future either way.

He’s also highly unlikely to be the last player caught doing this. Sports gambling has been normalized so quickly that it has to be easy to get sucked into thinking it’s really no big deal.

Sorsby probably read about Texas Tech having the second-best odds to make the College Football Playoff. He’s surely had DMs from fans angry that he didn’t hit the over on his passing yards. If he ever flipped on ESPN last season, he probably watched college football discussion happening with ESPN Bet odds scrolling at the bottom of the screen. 

It’s easy to see how Sorsby could fall into this. Especially while he was a little-known redshirt freshman at pre-Curt Cignetti Indiana. Nobody is going to pay attention to his gambling habit, right?

But things change when you’re the $5 million man and the number one player in the transfer portal. And the NCAA simply can’t budge on anything that would remotely bring into question the integrity of the outcome of games. 

Honestly, the real solution would be to turn back the clock a decade to a time before the sports gambling floodgates opened. But the toothpaste is out of the tube. 

As for what Tech does at quarterback, it likely comes down to Will Hammond’s health. 

Hammond shredded the vaunted Utah defense for over 200 total yards and two touchdowns in relief of Behren Morton in Salt Lake City last season. He also struggled mightily at Arizona State. 

Initially, it was thought his torn ACL would keep him out until at least week three, but reports today indicate he could be back in time for the season opener. 

If it’s not him, Tulsa transfer Kirk Francis, who threw for over 3,000 yards in his Golden Hurricane career, or freshman Lloyd Jones III, are next in line. 

In my eyes, this takes Tech from the overwhelming favorite to win the league to simply one of the top contenders, along with BYU and Houston. TCU, Arizona, and Arizona State aren’t too far behind. Oklahoma State is intriguing, too.

The problem for the Red Raiders is that even with another great transfer portal haul on defense, it’s unlikely that things will come together to form a historically good unit like last year’s Red Raider defense. 

The plan this year was to put together a much better offense to compensate. 

Hammond certainly seems talented enough to help the offense take a step forward. I even wrote that exact column last year after the Utah game. 

And when Iowa State lost Dekkers to a gambling scandal, Rocco Becht stepped in and took the Cyclones to unprecedented heights as a program. Could Hammond be Tech’s version of Becht?

We’ll see. For now, the Big 12 title race appears much more wide open.

What You Need to Know

• One of the Big 12’s best basketball players turned down the NBA to stay in school. 

• Utah director of sports performance Greg Argust abruptly resigned earlier today. 

• I’ll have more to say about this later this week (barring no other major breaking news), but ACC realignment chaos could be on the horizon, and the Big 12 may have an inside track to Miami. 

• AJ Dybantsa’s thank you note to BYU is a must-read.

• 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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