Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby has been granted a temporary injunction that allows him to practice and play with the Red Raiders in 2026 despite having been permanently banned by the NCAA for wagering on college sports.
Texas judge Ken Curry ruled Monday that the NCAA cannot block Sorsby’s final year of eligibility. The Cincinnati transfer will have to miss the first two games of the season as one of the conditions of the ruling.
In his ruling, Curry stated that Sorsby would “suffer a probable, imminent and irreparable injury” without the injunction by missing out on the “elite coaching, training resources, camaraderie, and regimen that only being a member of a Division I college football team can provide.”
“I’m very grateful for the endless support I have received throughout this entire process. I am also grateful for the chance to rejoin my teammates,” Sorsby wrote in a statement posted Monday on Instagram. “This opportunity comes with the responsibility to remain focused on my personal growth, the ability to learn from this experience, and to be able to use my situation to help others going forward.”
The NCAA can appeal the injunction but did not immediately indicate its next steps in the matter. It is unclear how long such a process would take. Texas Tech’s season starts Sept. 5, with Sorsby first eligible to play when the Red Raiders host Houston on Sept. 18.
“The NCAA strongly disagrees with the court’s ruling in Sorsby’s case and is deeply concerned about the damaging, far-reaching and broadly destabilizing ramifications of this outcome — which undermines and corrupts the integrity of sports,” the association said in a statement.
“The NCAA is committed to supporting student-athlete mental health but must continue to aggressively defend against actions that defraud college athletics and threaten competitive integrity, such as betting on one’s own sport.”
Last month, Sorsby’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in Lubbock County District Court requesting that he be declared eligible for all team activities because the NCAA “failed to comply with its contractual commitments” to him as a student athlete and therefore “is precluded from enforcing its gambling bylaws against Mr. Sorsby to deny or withhold his reinstatement.”
Sorsby spent two years at Indiana and two at Cincinnati before transferring to Texas Tech this offseason for a reported multimillion-dollar deal. In late April, he and Texas Tech jointly announced that he had entered a residential treatment program for gambling addiction and would be away from the team for an indefinite period of time.
According to court records, Sorsby has admitted to betting at least $90,000 during his time as an NCAA student athlete, including 40 bets on Indiana football games he was not participating in while a freshman backup with the Hoosiers in 2022.
NCAA guidelines state that student athletes who bet on their own games or on other sports at their school could “potentially face permanent loss of collegiate eligibility.” Texas Tech was informed of an NCAA investigation into Sorsby’s gambling activity in March, according to court records, and declared him ineligible according to the association’s bylaws.
The NCAA has since denied two petitions from Texas Tech to have Sorsby’s eligibility reinstated.
“As we have said before, we do not believe that the circumstances of Brendan’s case warranted permanent ineligibility,” Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt said Monday in a statement. “As he returns to our football program, we remain committed to supporting Brendan’s recovery and ensuring his compliance with the court’s order. A comprehensive support structure, including clinical care, monitoring, and compliance checks, will remain fully in place for the duration of Brendan’s time as a student at Texas Tech.”
Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks, a member of the NCAA Football Oversight Committee, told Yahoo Sports that there should “be serious conversations about not playing Texas Tech in any sports” as a result of Monday’s decision.
“This is not about Texas Tech. It’s about protecting our own locker room,” Brooks said. “We cannot in good conscience put our student-athletes on a field where the competitive integrity of the contest is compromised and overridden by the courts.
“All [Football Bowl Subdivision] schools should only take the field against programs operating under a uniform, trustworthy standard of fairness. We’ve officially reached the point of no return.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
