Brendan Sorsby latest: Cincinnati denies agent's accusation

Brendan Sorsby is done with college football, but college football is not quite done with Brendan Sorsby.

One of the most intense, bizarre 8-day sagas in the sport's history came to a close Monday night when Texas Tech announced Sorsby would not attempt to play for the Red Raiders this season and instead attempt to enter the NFL's supplemental draft, whose entry deadline is Monday. The end of Sorsby's brief time as a Red Raider is not the end of the story, however, and his exit from the program brings about more questions.

Whose idea was this in the first place? Cody Campbell, who is the chairman of Tech's board of regents in addition to his role as the de facto owner of the football team and aspiring reformer of college athletics, implied it was a mutual decision between Tech and Sorsby for him to move on. "The decision was made with Brendan and his family..." was how he put it in his statement Monday night.

In a legal filing on Wednesday, Sorsby's attorneys said Texas Tech made the decision for him. "On June 15, 2026 Plaintiff was informed by Texas Tech that, notwithstanding the Temporary Injunction Order, the University would not permit Plaintiff to play for its football team during the 2026-27 football season, thereby rendering the relief afforded by the Temporary Injunction Order moot." In order to be eligible for the NFL's supplemental draft, Sorsby must be ineligible to play college football, which means he has to withdraw the temporary injunction that overruled the NCAA's ineligibility ruling and set off this firestorm in the first place.

In the end, it's likely a distinction without a difference. It became clear in the middle of last week that attempting to move forward would be too risky for Tech and Sorsby, but that point didn't hit home until the Big 12 filed its lawsuit on Monday.

Where is Cincinnati in all this? In an interview with The Fan in Dallas on Wednesday, Sorsby's agent Ron Slavin said, "If anybody should be questioned or be catching heat, it should be Cincinnati, because they knew for two years and never said anything and didn't do anything about it."

Cincinnati responded, with a not-so-veiled shot at Texas Tech: “We will reiterate what we have said before. All of our student-athletes receive extensive gambling education multiple times throughout the year, and we would never knowingly play an athlete who violated NCAA sports wagering regulations. If we ever became aware of impermissible wagering, we would report to the NCAA and comply with sanctions."

The NCAA became aware of Sorsby's activities in March, well after he left Cincinnati, after law enforcement informed the organization of ongoing investigations into the quarterback. Gambling officials in Ohio and Indiana have opened investigations into Sorsby, who was underage at the time he was betting on Indiana football and basketball games as an Indiana quarterback. 

As a reminder, Texas Tech visits Cincinnati on Oct. 24. Expect that to be the most intense conference game between teams with two all-time meetings in college football history. 

What about Sorsby's money? In his announcement Monday, Campbell said Texas Tech would not recoup money already paid to Sorsby, but there have been no indications of a settlement or payoff for any of the remainder of the $4 million Sorsby was believed to make had he played for the Red Raiders this season. The Athletic reported Sorsby had earned around $1 million from Tech to this point. Sorsby's agent said his client owes around $1 million in legal fees, and in February Cincinnati sued Sorsby over a $1 million buyout in his contract with the Bearcats. 

No NFL team has used a first-round pick on a supplemental draft player in more than 30 years. (Here's a helpful explainer for how the process works.) The difference in contract value for the first pick in the NFL draft and the 100th is more than $50 million. Slavin claimed in his radio interview that 26 of the 32 NFL teams had already inquired about Sorsby, so it's safe to say he has the best chance to be a supplemental first-round pick of any player in this admittedly small sample size. It's also safe to say that Sorsby's actions in 2022 will cost him eight figures in earnings in 2026 and beyond. 

Where does Sorsby go from here? A date for the supplemental draft has not been set, but NFL rules require it to be no later than July 16. Sorsby will hold a pro day, likely in Lubbock, and then he'll have roughly a week to join his new team before training camp. As damaging as these events were to Sorsby's bank account, it's likely much better for his mental health. He's lost a year of development -- Sorsby still threw 968 passes over four seasons at Indiana and Cincinnati, well more than 13th pick Ty Simpson -- but now will have a year to redshirt on an NFL roster, where he won't be expected to start after joining whatever team that drafts him well into the offseason. Rather than serve as the Main Character for all of the college football season and the object of vitriol in every opposing stadium (doubly so at Cincinnati), Sorsby will be just 1 of 53 wherever he lands in the NFL. 

Where does Texas Tech go from here? The developments of the last two weeks were an egg on Texas Tech's face nationally, but they were unironically a win/win for Tech internally. The past two weeks have been an especially galvanizing "circle the wagons" moment, and now Texas Tech can move forward with the stressful and distracting Sorsby saga behind them, with the peace of mind that whatever the 2026 team accomplishes won't be ripped away from them down the road.

Joey McGuire is as good a motivator as there is in college football, and the Red Raiders will rally behind new starting quarterback Will Hammond when he's ready.

If Hammond is not fully recovered from his October ACL tear by Tech's Sept. 12 opener against Abilene Christian, Tulsa transfer Kirk Francis is expected to be next in line. Francis threw 462 passes across 18 games in three seasons with the Golden Hurricane, making him now the most experienced signal caller on the roster. Hammond threw 57 passes while redshirting in 2024, and then 109 across seven games in 2025. Other quarterbacks include redshirt freshmen Lloyd Jones III and Holden Phillips and true freshman Stephen Cannon. 

Texas Tech had eyes on competing for a national championship with Sorsby. Those goals are now severely diminished, unless Hammond makes an unforeseen leap during the season. But that's okay. The Red Raiders are still the odds-on favorite to win the Big 12, and repeating as conference champions under these circumstances would be nearly -- let's call it 91 percent -- as satisfying as winning a national title would have been in a universe where Brendan Sorsby never downloads PrizePicks as a lonely freshman at Indiana.