The reinstatement of Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is one of the most resoundingly unpopular sports stories to come around in a long time, and veteran radio host Dan Patrick is concerned about the precedent the university and its supporters are setting by supporting Sorsby despite what Patrick called “a pattern over years and years.”
Sorsby was banned from NCAA competition earlier this year after he self-reported a gambling habit across his college career, which was subsequently reported to have included bets on games his Indiana team played in while he was a freshman riding the bench. The NCAA twice denied the school’s petitions for Sorsby to be reinstated, but this week, a judge in Lubbock, Texas, where the school resides, issued a temporary injunction of the NCAA’s original ruling.
The NCAA will appeal, but Patrick reported on his show Tuesday that the first hearing in such a case would likely not take place until early 2027. The case would also be heard in northwest Texas, near Lubbock.
Patrick accused the Texas Tech athletic department of being “hypocritical,” feigning care for Sorsby and future college athletes struggling with gambling addiction in pursuit of short-term success with their coveted star transfer QB.
“The Big 12 has to decide, are you going to allow this?” Patrick said. “Let’s say Arch Manning was guilty of gambling. Let’s say he bet $90,000 and he bet 20 times on Texas football. And if you’re a Texas Tech, you’d be OK with that, Arch coming back, he just has to sit out two games, right? You’re being hypocritical. You can help the kid. It feels like we’re making him out to be a victim, and he’s not.”
While Red Raiders fans may be rejoicing over the injunction now, Patrick said, they will likely “discard” Sorsby and move on from the story the moment he is not relevant to the football program. If the school or the legal system was really interested in helping Sorsby, Patrick argued, the focus would be far more on treatment and far less on football.
“Yes he has a problem,” Patrick said.
“And the judge said it would be irreparable harm if he doesn’t play football. How about you just get him help and he doesn’t play football? That would be where I would start. You can say, ‘Oh he’s been to rehab.’ Addiction is every day. He’s not fixed. That’s the crazy part of this. If you’re going to treat it like it’s an addiction and you’re going to be serious about this, then be serious about this. Addicts don’t get ‘fixed.’ It’s every day. You’ve got to maintain. All you want is another day.”
Patrick emphasized that Sorsby’s betting issues were deep-rooted, and not a one-off incident.
“He knew this was illegal,” Patrick said.
Yet because of the Texas judge’s ruling, which claimed Sorsby would suffer “irreparable” harm if he were prohibited from playing, Patrick worries there is now precedent for letting players off the hook if universities can find courts where they have a “home-field advantage.”
“You can’t have this standalone one guy. What happens to the next guy? And the next guy? You’ve got legal precedent here,” Patrick cautioned. “You’ve got a green light to bet. Like, this is crazy.”
Sorsby will serve a two-game suspension to start the season before rejoining the Red Raiders football team, which has high hopes for the season after winning the Big 12 in 2025. But as Patrick expressed, the fallout from the legal case could be felt long after this coming fall.
The post ‘Green light to bet’: Dan Patrick rips Texas Tech for being ‘hypocritical’ with QB Brendan Sorsby appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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