Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on Monday as he seeks to play college football in 2026, according to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.
The former Cincinnati QB has been seeking treatment for a gambling addiction. Per NCAA rules, Sorsby could be banned from the upcoming season — his final year of eligibility — for betting on sports. Sorsby placed a bet on Indiana when he was a redshirt freshman for the Hoosiers in 2022, according to an ESPN report. According to the NCAA rulebook, an athlete can lose eligibility permanently when placing a bet on his or her own team.
Sorsby’s suit admits that he is “currently ineligible” to play for Texas Tech because he violated the NCAA’s gambling rules. Sorsby has made thousands of small-dollar bets in recent years.
“Mr. Sorsby is currently ineligible to play for Texas Tech due to prior violations of the NCAA’s sports gambling rules,” the suit states. “Rather than support a student-athlete’s recovery from a gambling addiction — a clinically diagnosed disorder recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — the NCAA has weaponized his condition to shore up a facade of competitive integrity, while simultaneously profiting from the very gambling ecosystem it polices. When Mr. Sorsby took accountability for his NCAA gambling rules violations (which undisputedly did not raise any integrity issues, i.e., his bets did not threaten the fairness, honesty and/or transparency of athletic competitions, or otherwise influence the outcome or athlete performance in those competitions) entered residential treatment, and offered to accept reasonable discipline (but not a full loss of eligibility for the upcoming season at Texas Tech) the NCAA responded not with the compassion its constitution demands, but with stonewalling, pretextual information demands, delay, and silence.”
Athletes are prohibited from betting on professional sports as well, provided those sports are also sanctioned by the NCAA. The NCAA moved to allow athletes to bet on pro sports late in 2025, but schools pushed back on the idea and overturned the initiative to keep the pro betting ban in place.
One of Sorsby’s attorneys is renowned sports litigator Jeffrey Kessler. He recently earned Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing a settlement in its antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and has previously represented plaintiffs against the NCAA.
“The NCAA’s position is also deeply hypocritical,” the lawsuit says. “While it imposes harsh gambling restrictions on student-athletes in the name of ‘integrity,’ the NCAA has partnered with Genius Sports to distribute real-time data feeds to sports books, publicly touted gambling as a “major opportunity” and provided over an ecosystem in which $3.3 billion was wagered on its basketball tournaments in 2026 alone. Having chosen to profit from gambling, the NCAA cannot credibly use that same ecosystem as a pretext to deny — or indefinite delay — fair, prompt, and student-athlete-centered reinstatement decisions.”
The NCAA said in a statement Monday afternoon that Sorsby had not formally applied for reinstatement through official NCAA processes.
“The NCAA has not received a reinstatement request for this case,” a statement said. “The NCAA generally doesn’t comment on pending reinstatement requests, but the Association’s sports betting rules are clear, as are the reinstatement conditions. When it comes to betting on one’s own team, these rules must be enforced in every case for the simple reason that the integrity of the game is at risk. Every sports league has these protections in place and the NCAA will continue to apply them equally because every student-athlete competing deserves to know they’re playing a fair game.”
Sorsby’s transfer to Texas Tech was one of the most significant of the offseason. The Red Raiders moved to add the experienced quarterback after losing to Oregon in the College Football Playoff. Tech used the transfer portal well in 2025 as it won the Big 12 for the first time and adding Sorsby — on an NIL deal reportedly worth north of $4 million — is the team’s latest effort to compete for a national title.
Last season’s starter, Behren Morton, is out of eligibility. Will Hammond has been set to be Sorsby’s backup, but he’s recovering from a torn ACL suffered a season ago while he started in place of an injured Morton.
The school announced in late April that Sorsby would be seeking gambling addiction treatment and coach Joey Mcguire said that the team supported Sorsby’s decision to get professional help.
If he’s banned by the NCAA, Sorsby would not be the first power conference quarterback who lost his eligibility for sports betting. Former Iowa State quarterback Hunter Dekkers was ruled ineligible by the NCAA ahead of the 2023 season after he was found to have placed bets on Iowa State as a backup on the team.
After transferring from Indiana, Sorsby was a two-year starter at Cincinnati and threw 45 TDs to just 12 interceptions across the 2024 and 2025 seasons. He also rushed for 18 TDs over those 24 games.
