Texas Tech is turning the Brendan Sorsby saga into an even bigger mess

The sooner Texas Tech stops attempting to defend itself, the better.

By now, you probably know that Red Raiders quarterback Brendan Sorsby has been ruled eligible to play after the first two games of 2026 by a Texas judge even though he placed thousands of sports bets as a college athlete and even bet on his own team when he was a redshirt freshman at Indiana.

It's a decision that has angered coaches and administrators at universities across the country. Schools are threatening to not play Texas Tech in any sports. Tech's compatriots in the Big 12 are upset too.

But instead of simply letting emotions subside and quietly weathering the hyperbolic fire, Tech has decided its strategy is to publicly dig deeper.And deeper.And deeper.

Thursday morning, just as the World Cup was getting started, the school inexplicably released a 20-plus-minute video including school president Lawrence Schovanec, athletic director Kirby Hocutt and coach Joey McGuire talking about Sorsby and the the ruling.

Yes, really. It was a roundtable video as long as a standard sitcom on your favorite streaming service. The immediate reaction — even from other schools — was predictable. And sometimes even funny.

Yahoo Sports’ own Dan Wolken wrote earlier in the week that Tech deserved more hate for the way it's behaved in the push for Sorsby to be reinstated. The heavily clipped video sure helped his cause.

"This is hard for our profession and I understand where my colleagues are coming from in some of their comments being made … [Sorsby's] made mistakes," Hocutt said. "He looked me in the eye this morning, again, and reassured me that he has done nothing to jeopardize the integrity of a game he's competed in. He's not given information about a game he's competed in. He's not jeopardized the competition or affected the outcome of any game that he has competed in."

But Sorsby did, admittedly, place dozens of bets on Indiana while he was a part of the team. Betting on or against your own team in any fashion even if you're the fifth-string QB is the most obvious no-no in sports.

It's possible to both have empathy for Sorsby, his addiction and the rehabilitation process ahead while also remembering that NCAA rules prohibit players from betting on college and pro sports. Just a few years ago, Iowa State quarterback Hunter Dekkers was among those who lost their eligibility for betting on the Cyclones while not seeing any playing time.

Sorsby's case is different, Tech says, because he has a gambling addiction. The video repeats many of the same talking points the school has trotted out since the push for Sorsby to play began; that Sorsby's addiction to betting is a medically diagnosed condition and should be considered a mitigating factor in his punishment.

Oh, and that Tech officially didn't have anything to do with Sorsby's lawsuit.

"Here it's important to note that Texas Tech University, Texas Tech athletics was not a party in his legal case," Hocutt said. "Nor did Texas Tech or Texas Tech athletics pay for his legal fees. This was all an individual initiative that Brendan and his legal team did. And by the same token, it was not a claim that sports wagering should be permitted. It was 'look at other mitigating factors.' Look at the situation of a young man who needed help, who went to a rehabilitation center, who was diagnosed with various situations and let's take this into account as you factor in your ultimate decision, NCAA."

"This was a legitimate legal process. This is a judge that was not from Lubbock, Texas. This was a judge that actually lives 300 miles away from Texas Tech University. The judge heard the arguments and ultimately made a ruling. A lot of people don't agree with that ruling, and that's their right. But it was a legitimate legal process that he received an injunction."

In a May letter outlining the expansive levels of support that the school would give Sorsby after he returned from his inpatient rehabilitation stay and was still ineligible to play football, Schovanec said that Sorsby would have software installed on his personal electronic devices that would block all betting sites.

In Friday's video, Hocutt said that software was not installed on Sorsby's items until the injunction was granted.

"In fact, the morning the injunction was awarded, Brendan immediately came to the football stadium to meet with our IT department, our compliance department, to put the monitoring technology on his devices that allows us to monitor the sites that he visits and block certain sites from him going to," Hocutt said. "And he does not have the ability to uninstall those programs that are on his phone."

When Dekkers or Iowa defensive lineman Noah Shannon lost their eligibility for betting, there was nothing like this public push for reinstatement. Then again, Iowa State wasn't coming off the first Big 12 title and College Football Playoff appearance in school history and thought it was an elite quarterback away from a national title contender, either.

Hocutt, McGuire and Schovanec again reiterated Thursday that their concern is first with Sorsby the student and person and then Sorsby the football player. And that the best environment for Sorsby to continue his recovery is by being a full-fledged member of the Texas Tech football team.

That may be entirely true. It is undisputedly also true that it's the best outcome for Texas Tech. Whether or not every single athlete in Texas Tech's athletic department would also get this full-throated of a defense is a hypothetical that you can ponder.

What isn't a hypothetical is that the Red Raiders are much more well-positioned for a second straight playoff appearance with Sorsby on the field. That's why the school paid him north of $4 million to transfer from Cincinnati.

Board of Regents chairman Cody Campbell let that cat out of the bag in an interview earlier in the week when he said that Tech had a contract with Sorsby "not only to pay him, but to play him" before adding, "So how do we not play a kid when we are obligated and instructed by a court that he can play?"

Can play and has to play, are, of course, two separate things. And McGuire has continued to be publicly non-committal about a timeline for Sorsby's return to game action.

But given the lengths that Tech has gone to defend itself while saying it's only acting in Sorsby's best interests, it's hard to see any scenario where he isn't on the field shortly after his two-game suspension is over.