Brendan Sorsby opts for NFL, Big 12-Texas Tech crisis resolved but the damage will linger in Lubbock

The Big 12 lowered the legal hammer Monday, with help from three state attorneys general, and Texas Tech caved.

Or Brendan Sorsby caved.

Or they both did.

The details are not yet public, but this much we know: Sorsby will leave Texas Tech and enter the NFL supplemental draft this summer, according to ESPN, thereby ending a ghastly saga that threatened to undermine the competitive integrity of Big 12 football and turn Texas Tech into a pariah.

Actually, check that: The Red Raiders are a pariah — the damage done to their reputation is immense and lasting. But more on that matter momentarily.

Let’s start with the context.

Sorsby was banned by the NCAA this spring after admitting to a gambling addiction and wagering on his own team as a redshirt at Indiana in 2022. But everything changed last week when he received a temporary injunction from Lubbock district court — a mind-boggling ruling even in the NCAA’s universe of courtroom defeats.

Thanks to the court ruling, he planned to take the field for the Red Raiders following a two-game suspension and had the full support of Texas Tech’s administration and its board chair, Cody Campbell, a billionaire who casts himself as the savior of college sports.

Texas Tech’s support of Sorsby’s return was opposed by, well, everyone.

No issue in recent memory has galvanized the entirety of college football like the Sorsby affair, and for good reason: His return could have led to other players gambling on their own teams, thus calling into question the legitimacy of the sport. (Did that quarterback just throw an interception on purpose?)

Once it became clear that the Big 12 might consider sanctions against the school if Sorsby played, Texas Tech and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened legal action.

That prompted the attorneys general of Oklahoma, Kansas and Utah to publicly support the Big 12’s right to sanction members based on conference bylaws.

It also spurred the Big 12 to respond with a legal complaint filed Sunday in federal court in Texas that sought declaratory judgment clarifying the Big 12 did, in fact, have the authority to sanction the Red Raiders.

With the walls closing like the trash compactor in Star Wars, Sorsby took the only escape hatch available: the supplemental draft.

Whether he did so at the urging of Texas Tech or found clarity of mind on his own is secondary to the end result: The Big 12 football season won’t feature a player who broke the one unbreakable rule in every sport on every level on every continent.

Meanwhile, the Red Raiders attempted to play the role of innocent bystander.

“The bottom line is that Texas Tech did absolutely nothing but act with complete integrity through this entire process,” Campbell said in a statement released Monday evening. “We broke no rules, no laws and crossed no ethical lines.”

(That’s debatable. According to the Big 12, the conference asked Texas Tech not to play Sorsby this season, and the Red Raiders refused to agree. Also, they threatened legal action against the conference for enforcing bylaws the school itself has supported in the past.)

Count this as a victory for commissioner Brett Yormark.

Mustering support from his board of directors (the university presidents) wasn’t difficult: The schools were outraged by Texas Tech’s plan.

But Yormark earns the victory for leadership in roughly similar fashion to Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, who suspended then-Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh in 2023 for the sign-stealing scandal, and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who opposed one of his blue-blood schools (Alabama) in a basketball eligibility case last winter.

And hopefully, Sorsby recovers fully from his gambling addiction and has a prosperous future, in the NFL or elsewhere.

There is really one loser in all this: the Rogue Raiders, whose reputation suffered the equivalent of a shutout loss in the College Football Playoff.

Their big spending on NIL in every sport, although not popular within the Big 12 (because it raises the cost of talent for everyone), is nonetheless fair game. They want to win, badly.

But with regard to off-the-field matters, the school has become increasingly outspoken and divisive within what was a tight-knit conference leadership structure.

For example, Texas Tech’s public complaints this spring about having to play Houston on a Friday night (Week 3) were unbecoming, as was Campbell’s subsequent decision to question Yormark’s authority on the matter.

“Apparently Brett didn’t get the memo: EVERYTHING RUNS THROUGH LUBBOCK!!” Campbell wrote on the social media platform X.

While that tiff dissipated quickly, Texas Tech’s support for Sorsby’s return to the field set new standards for both hypocrisy and impudence.

There was Campbell, proclaiming his commitment to fixing college sports while supporting a move that could have broken it.

And there was university president Lawrence Schovanec, who last year voted against allowing college athletes to wager on pro sports but then backed Sorsby’s return after he bet on his own team.

The ultimate twist in this sorry saga of misguided intent and billable hours?

Everything Campbell and the Red Raiders have done in recent years was designed to position themselves for inclusion in a college football super league or for the next wave of SEC and Big Ten expansion.

But through words and actions, they have become an outcast defined by institutional ego that dwarfs actual accomplishment.

Texas Tech’s stance with Sorsby and the threats directed at the Big 12 won’t soon be forgotten, by the conference or anyone else.

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