In the 48 hours since Judge Ken Curry's shocking decision to void the NCAA's suspension of Brendan Sorsby despite Sorsby's admission he bet on his own team's games, I've been thinking a lot about the delta between Sorsby and Will Hammond.
Hammond is Texas Tech's backup quarterback who played all or part of seven games last season, including the landmark win at Utah last September. Had Hammond not torn his ACL last October, Texas Tech likely does not bring in Sorsby in the first place, and then all of this is someone else's problem.
Sorsby is more talented than Hammond -- there's a reason Tech is paying the former is being paid $5 million and the latter is not -- but Hammond comes with significantly less baggage. Sorsby also brings a tremendous amount of baggage and reputational risk that Hammond does not. So, what is the delta between Sorsby and Hammond? How much more talented does Sorsby have to be than Hammond for the juice to still be worth the squeeze? A lot of that is still determined, as the other conferences and especially the Big 12 huddle in the coming days and weeks and see what sort of tools they have at their disposal to leverage Tech into cutting Sorsby loose, if such a thing is even possible.
But judging by the statement released by Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt on Wednesday, Tech plans to fight this to the bitter end, come what may.
The statement is posted at the bottom of this article, but I'm going to pull out sections below that merit their own commentary.
Brendan Sorsby has not played a down as a Red Raider. He will miss the first two games of the 2026 season under the terms of the court's ruling. What happens after that will depend, in no small part, on how his recovery continues to progress. We're taking it one day at a time as he is. We'll evaluate his recovery, compliance, and readiness as we go.
1. (Eyeroll) (A second eyeroll) (A third, even larger eyeroll)
I'm not trying to call anyone a liar here, and I'm sure Tech is doing everything they can to take Sorsby's recovery as seriously as possible, but... come on, man. This reminds me of when coaches make a big deal of forcing players to earn the right to wear the decals on their helmets. Lo and behold, every single player earns the decal before the first game, every single year. If Sorsby's recovery is not completed in time for him to put the pads on for fall camp, then we'll have a story.
Texas Tech is not a party to Brendan's lawsuit. We did not file it. We did not fund it. A young man in treatment for a clinically diagnosed addiction exercised his legal right to a remedy in court, and a judge agreed with him. Our role has been to support his recovery, not engineer his eligibility.
2. Technically true, logically inconsistent.
The only reason Sorsby filed a lawsuit to begin with was because Tech made it clear he still had a spot on the roster if he won said lawsuit. If Tech had said, "We support you as a person but violating the NCAA's clear rules against gambling is not something we're comfortable with," does Sorsby still file the lawsuit?
I've heard the "integrity" used a great deal in the last 48 hours. As someone who has dedicated his career to college sports, I, too, believe integrity is central to our industry's success. I also think integrity applies on more than one front. The integrity of the sport matters. So does the integrity of how we treat a 22-year-old who sought help, entered residential treatment, and is working every day toward recovery. Those two things don't have to be in conflict.
3. Hocutt is actively conflating two issues here.
No one's stopping Texas Tech from supporting Sorsby in his recovery, but that doesn't mean he has to play college football. Texas Tech and its supporters could settle his NIL contract and send him on his way. Texas Tech could let him work out at the facility as he prepares for the 2027 NFL Draft. Heck, Texas Tech could give him a headset and make him an honorary, volunteer GA for a season. Texas Tech is choosing not to do any of those things.
To my colleagues, I understand the frustration. The situation is hard, it is new, and there is no perfect answer. The system we're operating within is binary, but the situation is not.
4. Hocutt's colleagues disagree with that position, and Hocutt himself would disagree with it if Sorsby had chosen LSU or Indiana instead of Texas Tech.
This, to me, is where Sorsby's talent comes back into play.
What's unspoken here is that Texas Tech surely feels the rest of college football -- and especially the teams in the Big 12 -- are coming after Sorsby so hard because it would weaken the Red Raiders on the field. Sorsby is expected to be the best quarterback on the best team in the Big 12. If he were a walk-on defensive lineman, the vitriol would not be nearly as severe. Then again, if this were a walk-on defensive linemen, there is no lawsuit in the first place because there is no $5 million pot of gold for him to chase.
So, how good is Sorsby really? How hot must the temperature in the oven get for Texas Tech to cut Sorsby loose in a "We've mutually decided it'd be best to part ways" kind of way? Pretty darn hot, evidently.
