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A District Court judge in Lubbock, Texas, will take center stage Monday afternoon as attorneys for Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby seek a landmark NCAA ban that could allow him to play this season after admitting to placing thousands of bets over the past four years, including on his own team.
The gambling saga involving the Red Raiders’ currently ineligible star quarterback has caught the attention of the college athletics world, with his time at Texas Tech potentially coming to an end after just five months.
Now, in Lubbock District Court documents obtained by OutKick, Brendan Sorsby’s lawyers are putting it all on the line in hopes that a judge will grant him an injunction to play, basing part of their case on the diagnosis of a doctor based at an Arizona rehabilitation center.
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Hoping to get a judge to rule against the NCAA, Sorsby’s legal team provided a wealth of information to the court Friday, including how the quarterback was able to place so many bets while enrolled at Indiana, Cincinnati and Texas Tech.
ESPN’s David Purdum was the first to report the amount of money wagered.
According to a 111-page affidavit filed, the quarterback had placed $90,000 in bets over the past four years dating back to his freshman year playing for the Indiana Hoosiers. According to his lawyers’ filing, Sorsby used several betting apps to place bets, including FanDuel, Underdog, Hard Rock Bet and PrizePicks.
Brendan Sorsby of the Cincinnati Bearcats fights in the first half against the TCU Horned Frogs at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas on Nov. 29, 2025. (Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
BRENDAN SORSBY admits to gambling on his own team, sues NCAA IN LUBBOCK COURT FOR INjunction
But he didn’t do this on his own, enlisting the help of friends to place bets on various sports that included the NBA, PGA Tour and MLB, along with college football.
The quarterback admitted to transferring at least $60,000 to friends who placed bets for him.
And the most significant of them all might have come while he was a scout team quarterback in Indiana. Sorsby admitted through the filing to placing at least 2,900 bets over $30,000 during his time in Bloomington.
Betting on his own team cost the Texas Tech QB his eligibility
The damaging bets came during the 2022 season, with Sorsby saying he placed at least 40 different bets on his own football team during the redshirt season. The lawsuit says the quarterback made bets that ranged from $1 to $114 over a two-month period from September to October of that year.
In his defense, Sorsby claims he only bet on the Hoosiers to win and that he stopped placing bets before he played in his Indiana debut, which came against Penn State that season. According to NCAA rules, a player can participate in up to four games and still maintain a redshirt season.
Future Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby yells during the first half of the game between the Houston Cougars and the Texas Tech Red Raiders at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas, on Jan. 24, 2026. (John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
However, NCAA rules also prohibit a student-athlete from betting on any sport that also has a championship game at the collegiate level. This means that betting on your own team to win is obviously against the rules. For this, along with thousands of other bets placed on various sports, the NCAA has deemed Sorsby ineligible for the upcoming 2026 season.
In an earlier motion, attorneys representing Sorsby accused the NCAA of failing to support the quarterback in this situation and instead using his gambling addiction against him.
“Mr. Sorsby is currently ineligible to play for Texas Tech due to past violations of the NCAA’s sports gambling rules. Instead of supporting a student-athlete’s recovery from a gambling addiction, the NCAA has weaponized his condition to bolster a facade of competitive integrity,” the complaint read.
While Sorsby claims he “never bet on the Indiana team and/or individual members of the team in a game in which he participated. He did not engage in any activity designed to influence the outcome or integrity of an intercollegiate competition or in an attempt to influence win-loss margins,” he is fighting an uphill battle.
Gambling continued only with the Red Raiders, using friends to place bets
There were questions about whether Sorsby had stopped playing after enrolling at Texas Tech, but the quarterback admitted in the application that his addiction continued to spiral while in Lubbock.
Documents state Brendan used accounts belonging to two friends to place bets while admitting to sending $5,000 to those same friends to bet on MLB, NBA and PGA Tour events for him.
“Given the money I had and earned from NIL, the total amount I earned from 2022 to 2025 was not a big deal to me. I never kept track of my bets over time, but I’m pretty sure I lost more than I won,” Sorsby said in the filing.
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Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby jumps over Nebraska defensive back Malcolm Hartzog Jr. to score a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., on Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
But given everything that’s happened over the past four years, with Sorsby recently completing a 35-day stint at a rehab clinic in Arizona, the quarterback is still receiving support from Texas Tech.
In a letter to the NCAA Friday addressing his fight for reinstatement, the school continued to suggest a two-game suspension would be enough punishment for the crime.
“By imposing a two-game suspension on Sorsby and allowing him to continue his final season of eligibility, the NCAA would not set a bad precedent or override existing precedent,” the school noted. “This is a case of first and perhaps last impression.
“Has the NCAA ever had an athlete admit to placing thousands of bets and the only bets on his former team were that his team won when he wasn’t fit to play and when the student’s doctor indicated that he placed those bets because of an adjustment disorder with anxiety that caused him to place those bets to feel like a part of the team?”
Is the punishment appropriate for the crime? Red Raiders fight for Sorsby
Yes, Texas Tech believes a two-game suspension would be sufficient punishment for Sorsby admitting to placing bets on his former team while on the roster.
And the Red Raiders, along with Brendan’s lawyers, are essentially painting the NCAA as the bad guys.
“Imposing a career-ending sanction against Sorsby will send the message to current and future athletes hiding in the shadow of the stigma of challenging mental health and addiction that they need to remain silent and never seek help or treatment because the NCAA will take a punitive approach by automatically applying the maximum sanction,” argued Texas Tech.
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It should be noted that Brendan Sorsby did not come forward with his gambling problems until the NCAA was made aware of his past violations, along with Texas Tech not knowing about the problem when he enrolled at the school. It was a tip to the NCAA that started this investigation.
Now Sorsby, along with Texas Tech and the entire collegiate athletics world, awaits a district court decision that could shake the entire foundation on which we currently live.
