Texas Tech is pushing back on the backlash surrounding Brendan Sorsby’s path back to the football program.
Athletic director Kirby Hocutt defended the school’s handling of the quarterback’s sports betting case in a lengthy statement posted to social media, insisting the school is focused on Sorsby’s recovery.
“What happens after that will depend, in no small part, on how his recovery continues to progress,” Hocutt wrote. “We’re taking it one day at a time as he is.”
“We are not operating on blind faith,” he continued, adding that Texas Tech has a “comprehensive clinical and compliance structure” in place as Sorsby continues treatment for a gambling addiction.
Sorsby, who transferred to Texas Tech from Cincinnati earlier this year, was granted a preliminary injunction and deemed eligible to play this season for Texas Tech on Monday in a shocking ruling that shook the college football world.
In April, Sorsby left the Texas Tech program for a residential treatment program to treat a gambling addiction that he said started back while he was a freshman at Indiana in 2022.
Sorsby was later banned by the NCAA, which had repeatedly denied the player’s request to be reinstated before his big win in court earlier this week.
He is said to have placed more than 9,000 bets for over $90,000, with at least 40 wagers placed on Hoosiers, when he was part of Indiana’s football team during the 2022 season.
Sorsby will miss the first two games of the Red Raiders’ season, as his attorney suggested and the court ruled.
Hocutt emphasized that the university was not behind the lawsuit.
“Texas Tech is not a party to Brendan’s lawsuit. We did not file it. We did not fund it,” Hocutt wrote. “A young man in treatment for a clinically diagnosed addiction exercised his legal right to seek a remedy in court, and a judge agreed with him. Our role has been to support his recovery, not to engineer his eligibility.”
Hocutt also appeared to address the overwhelming pushback from the NCAA and fellow Big 12 schools while arguing that college athletics needs a more nuanced way to handle gambling violations when addiction and treatment are involved.
“To my colleagues: I understand the frustration,” Hocutt wrote. “This situation is hard, it is new, and there is no perfect answer. The system we’re operating within is binary, but the situation is not. We are open to ongoing conversations about how to best handle these issues as an industry going forward. We will continue to be transparent in our decision-making.
“Most importantly, we will keep doing what we have always done, put our students first.”
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