On Monday, June 8, Texas Tech’s highly anticipated quarterback Brendan Sorsby was granted a temporary injunction, allowing him to play in the 2026 season while his gambling case against the NCAA continues. The NCAA immediately appealed the judge’s decision the same day.
Sorsby redshirted as a freshman at Indiana in 2022. That season, he placed multiple bets (at least 40) on Indiana football games and players. His gambling addiction worsened over the following years at Indiana and then Cincinnati, where he placed thousands of bets totaling around $90,000.
In April 2026, shortly after transferring to Texas Tech, the NCAA began investigating him. Later that month, Texas Tech announced he was taking an indefinite leave to enter a 35-day residential rehab program in Arizona for gambling addiction, which he completed in late May. Upon return, he was declared ineligible by the NCAA for betting on his own team.
Texas Tech and Sorsby sued the NCAA the same day. A Texas judge granted the temporary injunction on June 8, with a full trial set for February 2027.
While speaking to the Touchdown Club of Houston, head coach Joey McGuire defended Sorsby, arguing, “As a society, we’ve been OK with other things that happens and allowing players to play. … It’s crazy because it’s not murder; it’s not beating somebody.”
BlazeTV host Steve Deace calls this mindset a product of modern culture’s “toxic empathy.”
“You can look at Brendan Sorsby and say, ‘You’re playing in an industry that is sponsored by gambling. The entities that want to condemn you are taking huge gambling dollars and advertising,”’ Deace acknowledges.
He also sympathizes with the “temptation” Sorsby faces as a young man with an addiction and a cell phone designed to gratify it.
“We put these little devices in your phones, and you’re an impulsive young man and … the ‘vice-ocracy’ is right here at your fingertips. It’s very enticing, hard not to succumb to,” he admits.
But consequences, Deace argues, are necessary regardless.
“In his right mind, would Brendan Sorsby risk a $6 million payday to get down for 25 bucks on a Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals parlay? No. Just like in your right mind, would you risk your entire family and your reputation to get down with your secretary? No,” he analogizes. “But see, because of sin, we’re not in our right minds, and that’s why we need consequences.”
Empathy, he argues, is a good thing as long as it doesn’t lead to the absolution of punishment.
“We can imagine having the world as your oyster as Brendan Sorsby did and the money you’re making now and this device in your hands and the dopamine hits, and I can think, ‘Holy cow, what would I have done with that at 20 or 21?’ You can have empathy, but we still have to have accountability,” Deace explains.
“The difference between empathy and toxic empathy is toxic empathy demands no accountability and instead condemns you for trying to instill it. Empathy comes with accountability.”
Co-host Aaron McIntire agrees. “I think something that needs to be re-emphasized with this story is that Brendan Sorsby did not turn himself in. He was caught,” he points out.
“That in and of itself is problematic because you kind of wonder, hey, do you really think that you have a problem here? Whereas if he had turned himself in, I think the accountability should be the same thing, but on a human level, on a man-to-man level, there’s some integrity that is still left.”
McIntire condemns Joey McGuire’s downplaying of Sorsby’s offense.
“What [Sorsby] is doing is not just undermining his own credibility and integrity. … He is nuking the integrity of everyone else in this sport,” he argues, speculating that fans will now overanalyze every bad play as potential “point shaving.”
“It’s just disgusting.”
To hear more, watch the episode above.
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