The Texas Tech Red Raiders found themselves in the crosshairs of basically the sports world as a whole when they decided to back former quarterback Brendan Sorsby in the midst of a gambling scandal.
It wasn’t their support of Sorsby that drew outrage. The former Indiana Hoosiers and Cincinnati Bearcats quarterback had an admitted gambling addiction and had checked himself into an inpatient rehab.
The Red Raiders had Sorsby’s back as a person, but they also continued to say that they would play Sorsby despite the fact that the NCAA had ruled him ineligible because of his gambling transgressions — which included betting on Indiana football while he was on the team.
Sorsby was fighting the NCAA in court for a time, and the Red Raiders brass publicly had his back. This, even though had Sorsby actually played in 2026, the validity of the entire sport of college football would have been called into question.
Every play, good or bad, would have drawn massive scrutiny. After all, he was found out to have bet on his own team.
Texas Tech became a pariah in the sports world and drew the ire of notable voices across the world of sports, and not just in the college football world.
Notably, though, head coach Joey McGuire recently revealed that not everyone was dragging the Red Raiders…at least behind the scenes.
“The thing for me, that through all of this, my president and my AD, who are good friends of mine, who believed in me, who hired me, they went through a lot,” McGuire recently said at Big 12 Media Day (h/t On3). “Like, if you look as a whole, there were not a lot of coaches that said really a whole lot, you know? There was some funny jabs taken by some coaches, but there wasn’t a lot of coaches that just really came out and said a lot of different things, and so for my peers, I got a lot of support, you know?”
Big 12 coaches supported Joey McGuire through Brendan Sorsby drama
In fact, McGuire revealed that he heard support from multiple head coaches within the Big 12 coaching fraternity. That includes new Oklahoma State head coach Eric Morris, BYU head coach Kalani Sitake and Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham.
“Eric Morris, the first day any news broke, called me and said, ‘Hey man, I’m just doing a well check.’ He’s a good friend of mine, Kalani, great friend of mine, said the same thing. Kenny Dillingham made a joke in a group text, and then called me, said, ‘You know, I was kidding.’ I said, ‘Kenny, dude, I get it, man,’” McGuire said. “So, for me, my peers, I had so much support for my peers, and it was tough to, you know, see Kirby and President Schovanec have to go through that. I hate that for them.”
Ultimately, Texas Tech and Sorsby parted ways as the quarterback decided to try his hand at the NFL supplemental draft.
The NFL decided not to hold that draft and wished Sorsby luck with his entry into the 2027 NFL Draft. Meanwhile, the Canadian Football League also barred Sorsby from playing in 2026.
It’s interesting to see the rest of the sports world so publicly slam the door on Sorsby for 2026 while Texas Tech was so loudly in favor of him playing.
There’s supporting your people, and then there’s thumbing your nose at authority. In this case, Texas Tech fought the law, and the law won, though it does seem like McGuire, at least, will escape this saga largely unscathed among his peers.
