We've yet to see a player sue the NCAA on the grounds that an official overturning his touchdown catch was an illegal restriction of trade based upon the endorsements opportunities he would've had if the touchdown had been allowed to stand, but I'm beginning to think that's only because the right player hasn't met the right lawyer yet.
In the meantime, Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby filed an injunction on Monday, claiming the NCAA rejected his offer for a 2-game suspension, and is now seeking a Lubbock County, Texas, judge to rule him eligible for the 2026 season.
Sorsby announced on April 27 he was seeking treatment for a gambling addiction, which is under NCAA investigation. In the affidavit, Sorsby admitted to betting on Indiana football games while he was a reserve quarterback for the Hoosiers. The NCAA has yet to apply any punishment to Sorsby, but Sorsby's laywers are arguing in court that the investigation is moving to slow, and that the organization shouldn't be allowed to punish him anyway.
"If I cannot practice with the team, it will be severely detrimental to my mental health and my development as an athlete," Sorsby said in the affidavit, via ESPN. "Without access to coaching, teammates, and on-field repetitions, I cannot develop the chemistry and skills necessary to start at quarterback in the 2026 season -- and each additional day away compounds that harm. These developmental opportunities cannot be replaced or replicated."
Former Virginia quarterback Chandler Morris used the mental health argument in his pursuit of a seventh season, which ultimately was not successful. Sorsby says his gambling addiction has been "clinically diagnosed" with a "mental health condition."
"The NCAA has weaponized his condition to shore up a facade of competitive integrity, while simultaneously profiting from the very gambling ecosystem it polices," the affidavit reads.
The NCAA's lawyers will certainly argue that a professional sports team running advertisements for a beer company doesn't absolve a player from drinking and driving. That isn't a perfect analogy in that sports betting isn't illegal -- although the gaming commissions of Ohio and Indiana are looking into his betting activities -- but betting on your own team's games has always been a red line for all sports leagues. Sorsby's defense of betting on the Hoosiers as a Hoosier is that he only bet on his team to win and his teammates to hit the "over", and that he stopped all bets once he became IU's backup quarterback. However, the reason betting on one's own team has always been explicitly outlawed -- even to win -- is that not betting on your team then becomes just as incriminating as betting, in that it could become a tell for other bettors aware of Sorsby's activities.
The NCAA handbook states that betting on one's own team constitutes a permanent loss of eligibility.
Sorsby has requested -- and, now, legally demanded -- the NCAA expedite its investigation because his football future could hang in the balance. He joined Texas Tech with a reported $5 million NIL price tag, which presumably would bottom out to nothing if he is ineligible to play this fall. And the deadline to enter the NFL's supplemental draft is June 30. "The NCAA has manufactured an impossible bind: it delays its reinstatement decision while the NFL deadline closes in, forcing Mr. Sorsby to choose between surrendering college eligibility he wants to retain, while risking the loss of a full year of competitive football entirely," the filing said.
The NCAA will argue that it did not set the timing for the revelation of Sorsby's gambling activity, nor is it in control of the NFL's deadlines.
But the NCAA will make those arguments in Lubbock County, where it will ask a local judge to rule against one of the most popular citizens of the county.