Brendan Sorsby will leave Texas Tech and enter the NFL supplemental draft, Texas Tech announced Monday night.
The move comes a week to the day after Sorsby shockingly won an injunction in Lubbock County, Texas, from Judge Ken Curry, setting off a chain reaction that Texas Tech did not see coming.
The Red Raiders mounted a p.r. campaign to explain and defend Sorsby's eligibility, starting with an open letter from AD Kirby Hocutt, public comments from head coach Joey McGuire and board of regents chairman/football super-booster Cody Campell, a lengthy video from Texas Tech leadership, and culminating in a letter to the Big 12 from Texas attorney general Ken Paxton threatening the conference with legal action in the event the conference attempted to punish Sorsby and/or Texas Tech.
Plenty within the legal community disagreed with that notion, with attorneys general from Oklahoma, Kansas and Utah taking the Big 12's side. In the most important step, the Big 12 made a filing in federal court on Monday asserting its authority to sanction Texas Tech according to its own bylaws -- indicating that a fine and/or barring the Red Raiders from the Big 12 Championship in the event Sorsby played this season.
Would that have been successful? Who knows. Either way, a legal battle would have been ugly, expensive, drawn out, and risky for both sides.
As we wrote Friday:
We'll let the lawyers do their thing, but to me this whole fiasco boils down to the same question: Is the juice worth the squeeze?
The juice was no longer worth the squeeze for Texas Tech. The heat was too hot in the oven for Sorsby. Insert your preferred metaphor here, but either way it was no longer worth it for Sorsby to attempt to play for Texas Tech this fall.
Sorsby leaves Texas Tech without ever appearing in a game, but with quite a legacy:
-- It's in Texas Tech's and the Big 12's mutual best interest to kiss and make up (even though it will probably take a while), but will the rest of college football forgive and forget? A conference-wide ban on non-conference scheduling never made sense for numerous reasons, but it will be interesting to track if the non-conference series Joey McGuire teased earlier this month still happens.
-- Is Sorsby even eligible for the NFL supplemental draft? Technically no, according to Yahoo's Ross Dellenger, though it's expected Sorsby will withdraw his lawsuit, thereby making him ineligible once again in the NCAA and, thus, eligible for the supplemental draft.
The supplemental draft is normally reserved for players who are not eligible to play in college. For now, he is eligible to play, per a Texas state court ruling.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) June 15, 2026
If he applies, he may now need an exception from the NFL.
An unprecedented situation grows more fascinating.
-- What happens to the reported $4 million in NIL Sorsby was due at Texas Tech?
-- How will Sorsby prepare for the supplemental draft, and an NFL career, while also managing his addiction recovery? Texas Tech had systems in place to support him, will those transfer to whatever NFL team takes him?
-- Texas Tech believes it did nothing wrong in supporting him, and will surely enter its 2025 Big 12 title defense with a chip on its shoulder. How will relations with the Big 12 and the NCAA at large heal, and how will the rest of college sports view Texas Tech moving forward?