Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby shouldn’t play after gambling admission

We’ll get to Brendan Sorsby in a second.

But on June 12, 2003, the University of Washington fired football coach Rick Neuheisel for twice participating in a neighborhood March Madness bracket pool, then lying about his involvement to NCAA investigators. It didn’t matter that Neuheisel didn’t coach the sport he bet on, or that the Huskies didn’t qualify for either tournament.

Rules were rules, and this one was the bedrock of a billion-dollar industry. The integrity of competition could not be compromised.

Days before the firing, then-NCAA president Myles Brand said in an interview with The Seattle Times: “Gambling on youth, young men and women, and in this case the men’s basketball tournament, is simply unacceptable and deserves a severe punishment if true.”

(The NCAA and UW later settled Neuheisel’s wrongful termination suit, after NCAA investigators broke their own bylaws. The NCAA has done more fumbling than any of the football teams it fails to supervise.)

Still, Neuheisel’s firing was necessary, its justification ironclad. He was hired to lead a hundred 18- to 21-year-olds through an incomparable pressure cooker, on and off the field. To be a beacon of responsibility. To protect a game, and an industry, that operated on the sacred certainty that anyone could win.

No gambling. No exceptions. Even if you’re picking Syracuse over Texas in a buddy’s bracket pool.

Now? There are no rules in college sports that can’t be bypassed, no severe punishments considered permanent. In an era without viable enforcement, rules are requests. Guardrails are made of papier-mâché, trampled by money trucks. Without the means to make them matter, why make rules at all?

Which is why Sorsby will play football at Texas Tech this fall.

The 22-year-old quarterback has admittedly made thousands of impermissible bets totaling at least $90,000 during his college career. As a freshman at Indiana in 2022, he made 40 bets on Hoosier football games, though he didn’t appear in any of the games he gambled on. After the NCAA notified Texas Tech of Sorsby’s gambling in April, the former Indiana and Cincinnati signal-caller completed a 35-day inpatient rehab program for diagnosed gambling and anxiety disorders.

But the severity is plain to see, as is the precedent.

No gambling. No exceptions.

Unless, of course, you’re a quarterback and Heisman Trophy candidate on a playoff contender. Unless the hometown judge’s gavel goes your way. Unless any commensurate discipline may harm your mental health.

On Monday, Sorsby was granted a temporary injunction against the NCAA, which had obviously and unsurprisingly ruled him ineligible. According to Texas judge Ken Curry, Sorsby’s attorneys demonstrated that the quarterback “will suffer a probable, imminent and irreparable injury” if unable to rip touchdowns for the Red Raiders this fall.

Sorsby will be suspended for Texas Tech’s first two games, against overmatched Abilene Christian and Oregon State, a speed bump proposed by his attorneys and approved by Curry. He will return for the reigning Big 12 champions’ entire conference slate.

Look, a gambling addiction is not to be taken lightly, nor is any person’s mental health. As a 22-year-old with an addiction, Sorsby is not irredeemable. He is human, as are we. He deserves empathy, understanding and the opportunity to improve.

He does not deserve to play college football. Not anymore.

College football is a privilege, not a right. Not a remedy. I don’t doubt Sorsby’s mental health would be impacted by an appropriate punishment. But that shouldn’t override the need for enforceable rules. A sport, like a society, benefits from responsible governance. From reliable guardrails. From consequences.

In 2023, Iowa defensive tackle Noah Shannon was ruled ineligible for his sixth and final season by the NCAA after self-reporting that he bet less than $100 on Iowa women’s basketball in the Final Four. That discipline undoubtedly impacted Shannon’s mental health. But rules were rules.

Until they weren’t.

“I still see Noah (now Iowa’s assistant director of player development) every day, and believe me, you think he’s not watching this and trying to figure out, ‘What the hell happened to me?’” Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz told The Athletic on Monday. “I don’t know what to say to him, other than, ‘You got screwed.’”

Shannon’s punishment, like Neuheisel’s, was justifiable. Sorsby’s indestructible eligibility isn’t.

Because what happens when outcomes are compromised? When a bracket pool becomes something bigger? When unchecked gambling infects the faith that a game wasn’t bought and sold before it began?

Fans stop caring. Their time and money go, too. Which is why every legitimate sports league punishes its players for gambling on games.

I don’t know what will happen next. Maybe Texas Tech will reverse course and cave to the searing public scrutiny. Maybe the Big 12 will step in and bar Sorsby from playing. Maybe he’ll declare for the NFL draft. Maybe the ruling will be reversed upon appeal. Maybe a collective bargaining era will finally arrive. Maybe he’ll play and win while the sport loses.

But the sport has already lost plenty. Regional rivalries. Conference affiliations. Retainable rosters. “Loyalty,” a mirage manufactured with transfer restrictions and dirty money.

This fall, the Huskies will start a quarterback whose contract (probably) kept him here. The Apple Cup will be played on Sunday, Sept. 6. Cal will open its conference schedule on the road at Syracuse.

People will watch anyway.

The question is for how much longer.