NFL hopeful
In a surprising turn of events, Brendan Sorsby has announced that he will not play quarterback at Texas Tech, instead declaring for the NFL’s supplemental draft. The decision comes just a week after a judge granted him a temporary injunction, allowing him to play college football after the NCAA ruled him ineligible for betting on college games.
The supplemental draft is a little-used option, allowing players who were ineligible for the NFL draft, but then become eligible after it has been conducted to be selected in an alternate draft. There has not been a supplemental draft since 2023 and no player has been picked in it since 2019.
While Sorsby would have been drafted next year, and possibly within the first couple rounds, there is no guarantee that anyone will take him in the supplemental draft. If Sorsby is not selected, he will become a free agent.
Betting and legal drama
The NCAA discovered that Sorsby placed over 9,000 bets totaling at least $90,000 over the course of four years while at Indiana University, the University of Cincinnati, and Texas Tech. Forty of the bets were on Indiana while he was on the team.
Sorsby entered a 35-day inpatient treatment program in April, where he was diagnosed with anxiety and a gambling addiction. In filing for the injunction, his legal team argued that banning him from college football would harm his mental health and damage his future playing prospects.
The reaction to the judge’s granting of the temporary injunction was received with scorn from around the college football world. A coach of one of Texas Tech’s rival Big XII schools told ESPN, “If this is the precedent, then I owe it to my players to bring in people from Las Vegas to teach us how to gamble. Then collectively, we need to decide which games we will play hard in [to cover the spread] and which ones we won’t.”
Aside from the precedent of allowing players who gamble – and on their own team, no less – to be allowed to continue playing, many were concerned that the ruling means that the NCAA will have more difficulty in the future governing college sports. The organization has rules and enforced them, only to see the player sue and a judge overrule the governing body.
Schools and conferences had discussed not scheduling Texas Tech teams in protest and the Big XII itself was considering sanctions. All sorts of legal filings and threats started flying back and forth between the conference (against Sorsby), Texas AG Ken Paxton (for Sorsby), and other state AG’s (against Paxton and Sorsby).
But all that is moot now, as Sorsby hopes to suit up for an NFL team in the fall. The fallout will last, though, as the strength of the NCAA is now in question.
