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Texas Tech isn’t backing down. The school’s fight to play quarterback Brendan Sorsby this fall has officially become a full-blown legal standoff, with the state of Texas now pointing a loaded gun at the Big 12 Conference.
The Texas Attorney General’s office fired off a formal letter to the Big 12 on Thursday, warning that any attempt to sanction Texas Tech over the Sorsby situation would qualify as a per se antitrust violation. The exposure? More than $200 million in potential liability. The letter was signed by both the chief of the Antitrust Division and the chief of the General Litigation Division, making clear this isn’t a bluff.
It landed on the Big 12’s desk right before an executive board meeting that included four university presidents.
The letter zeroed in on a specific bylaw Big 12 leadership has been eyeing as a potential punishment mechanism. That bylaw allows the conference to sanction a member school if a supermajority (12 of 15 schools) votes that the school engaged in conduct materially adverse to the conference’s best interests. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark acknowledged the situation after that meeting, saying only that “all options remain on the table.”
Kessler Piles On
Alongside the attorney general’s letter, prominent sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler sent his own warning to the Big 12 on Sorsby’s behalf. Kessler, who helped negotiate the landmark House v. NCAA settlement last year, represented Sorsby in his successful push for a temporary injunction against the NCAA earlier this month. That injunction prohibits the NCAA from banning Sorsby from playing this upcoming season.
“What does it say about the Big 12 if it decides to lawlessly violate a court order? What message does it send to its students if its response to a lawful court order is to be contemptuous of its terms? One would expect something more honorable from the conference and its member schools.”
Kessler also asked the Big 12 and its members to preserve any documents related to Sorsby and the court’s order, a standard step when litigation is being prepared.
How We Got Here
The whole situation has unraveled fast. On Monday, a judge issued a four-page order granting Sorsby eligibility, citing in part the need for him to make an informed decision about his NFL future. Sorsby admitted to placing thousands of bets over four years, including several on his own team while he was redshirting at Indiana in 2022. Under the terms of the injunction, he’ll sit out the first two games against Abilene Christian and Oregon State before returning for the Big 12 opener on Sept. 18 against Houston.
That ruling set off a chain reaction across college football.
Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt pushed back Wednesday against critics questioning the program’s integrity, making clear the school sees its role very differently than the rest of the sport does.
“Texas Tech is not a party to Brendan’s lawsuit. We did not file it. We did not fund it. 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 followed that up with a pointed remark about how the word “integrity” is being thrown around. “The integrity of sport matters,” he said. “So does the integrity of how we treat a 22-year-old who sought help, entered residential treatment, and is working every day toward recovery.”
The Backlash Is Real
Not everyone is buying it. Georgia and Nebraska athletic directors have already vowed not to schedule Texas Tech going forward. As CBS Sports reported Tuesday, every Big 12 athletic director is adamant that Sorsby shouldn’t play this season. And on Friday, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office sent its own letter to the Big 12, urging the conference to sanction Texas Tech and signaling it would help fight any legal countermeasures Tech might bring.
Athletic directors across the sport are reportedly preparing for a much bigger fight if Sorsby actually takes the field.
Sitting behind much of this is Cody Campbell, the chair of Texas Tech’s board of regents. Campbell is a billionaire donor who’s poured significant money into both the Red Raiders’ roster and the Protect College Sports Act, a bill that’s already drawing opposition from the Big Ten and SEC on Capitol Hill. The Sorsby situation complicates that political picture considerably; Texas Tech and Campbell could end up as adversaries of the very conferences the bill needs to pass.
The Big 12’s full slate of presidents and chancellors is scheduled to meet Monday to discuss the situation. A final decision isn’t expected that day, but the meeting should signal which direction the conference is actually leaning.
The conference is caught between two bad options. Sanction Texas Tech and face the legal exposure the attorney general put in writing Thursday; or stand down, absorb the fury of nearly every other athletic director in the league, and risk sending a message that its own rules are unenforceable.
Neither is a good look.
