CULLMAN, Ala. – Rules no longer have bearing in college football, but we already knew that.
What we didn’t know was to what extent, but we found out earlier this week after Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby won his injunction against the NCAA, ruling him eligible to play this year (the ruling judge was a Texas Tech graduate and fan, by the way) after it was made public he placed over 40 bets on his own team while at Indiana in 2022.
40 among the reported number of 9,000 total bets, especially when he wasn’t playing at the time, seems like a drop in the bucket. Pro leagues like MLB and the NBA have banned players for life for far less, though.
College football wants to function like a professional league, but the lack of regulation from the top has left it vulnerable to people like Cody Campbell, a former Red Raider offensive lineman and current oil tycoon.
Campbell is Tech’s top booster and de-facto owner of the team, and has stepped to the plate for Sorsby through backlash over Monday’s ruling. This is nothing new, we saw Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss and Tennessee’s Joey Aguilar backed for their cases against the NCAA, but Campbell is taking things a step further.
Rightfully, other teams in the Big 12 conference have made their feelings public, with Kansas State’s Athletic Director, Gene Taylor, releasing an expletive-laced statement on Tuesday. The feelings are strong, and united, against Texas Tech, to the point where teams in the conference are reportedly threatening to boycott games against the Raiders.
“It’s because the college football world doesn’t think that Texas Tech should be as good as we are. You know, we’ve this we’ve been a disruptor, just like Indiana has, And so we’re a target, and we have been before any of this started,” Campbell said in an interview Dan Dakich this week. He added, “And you know, people don’t want to compete with us. Of course ADs in the Big 12 are saying crazy things and, you know, saying they don’t want to play as well. They don’t want to play us because they know he’s good and they don’t want us to be as competitive. They want to have a better chance at winning the conference. So they’re, inherently conflicted in their opinion. So, we’re gonna do the right thing by this kid and follow the law.”
Campbell, with his net worth of $6 billion dollars, alleges he wants “to do right by this kid,” but ask yourself, would you hire an alcoholic to be a bartender? If Sorsby’s addiction is as volatile as it seems, putting him right back in the situation it was bred in does not exactly sound like it’s in the best interest of the kid.
Now, Sorsby messed up, he’s owned up to that and has taken the proper channels to get treatment. Going through this in the public spotlight of sports is probably extremely taxing, but the fallout of the injunction is not Sorsby’s fault, and I don’t believe the anger from fans should be directed at him.
He’s a talented kid who wants to play football, and had a chance to do so for a lot of money, but made a mistake. Well, at least 40 of them. Dragging Sorsby through an angry town square to still prop him up at quarterback at the end of it, however, serves no one’s benefit but their own.
