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A district court judge in Lubbock, Texas, will take center stage Monday afternoon as lawyers for Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby seek a historic injunction against the NCAA that could allow him to play this season after he admitted 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 captured 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 everything on the line in hopes of a judge granting him a restraining order, and they’re 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 plethora of information to the court on 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 being 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 first year playing for the Indiana Hoosiers. Sorsby, according to his lawyers’ filing, used several betting apps to place bets, including FanDuel, Underdog, Hard Rock Bet and PrizePicks.
Brendan Sorsby of the Cincinnati Bearcats fights during the first half against the TCU Horned Frogs at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas on November 29, 2025. (Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
BRENDAN SORSBY ADMITS TO GAMBLING HIS OWN TEAM AND SUES NCAA IN LUBBOCK COURT FOR INJUNCTION
But he didn’t do it alone, getting help from friends to bet on different sports, including the NBA, PGA Tour and MLB, as well as college football.
The quarterback admitted to transferring at least $60,000 to friends who bet for him.
And the biggest of them might have come while he was quarterbacking a scout team at Indiana. Sorsby, in his filing, admitted to placing at least 2,900 bets for more than $30,000 during his time in Bloomington.
Betting on his own team cost Texas Tech QB his eligibility
The damaging bets took place during the 2022 season, when Sorsby said he placed at least 40 different bets on his own football team during the redshirt season. The court filing says the quarterback was making bets ranging 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 winning and stopped betting before playing his Indiana debut against Penn State that season. Under NCAA rules, a player can appear in up to four games and still have a redshirt season.
Future Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby shouts 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 January 24, 2026. (John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
But also, NCAA rules prohibit a student-athlete from betting on any sport that also features a championship game at the collegiate level. This means that betting on your own team to win is obviously against the rules. For this, as well as thousands of other bets placed on different sports, the NCAA deemed Sorsby ineligible for the upcoming 2026 season.
In a previous motion, attorneys representing Sorsby criticized the NCAA for 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 prior violations of the NCAA’s sports gambling rules. Rather than supporting a student-athlete’s recovery from gambling addiction, the NCAA has instrumentalized his condition to shore up a facade of competitive integrity,” the complaint states.
While Sorsby claims he “has never bet on the Indiana team and/or individual members of the team in any game in which he participated. He has not engaged in any activity intended to influence the outcome or integrity of any intercollegiate competition or for the purpose of affecting margins of victory and defeat,” he is fighting an uphill battle.
Gambling only continued with the Red Raiders, using friends to place bets
There was question whether Sorsby stopped playing after enrolling at Texas Tech, but the quarterback admitted on the record that his addiction continued to skyrocket in Lubbock.
Documents indicate that Brendan used accounts belonging to two friends to place bets, while admitting to sending $5,000 to those same friends so they could bet for him on MLB, NBA and PGA Tour events.
“Considering the money I had and won from NIL, the total amount I won from 2022 to 2025 was not a big deal to me. I never tracked my bets over time, but I’m pretty sure I lost more than won,” Sorsby said in the filing.
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Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby passes 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, Missouri, August 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
But, considering everything that’s happened over the past four years, with Sorsby recently completing a 35-day stay at a rehab clinic in Arizona, the quarterback still receives support from Texas Tech.
In a letter Friday to the NCAA regarding its fight for reinstatement, the school continued to suggest that a two-game suspension would be sufficient 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 be setting a bad precedent, nor disregarding existing precedent,” the school noted. “This is a case of first, and perhaps last, impression.
“Has the NCAA ever had an athlete who admitted to placing thousands of bets, and the only bets on his former team were for his team to win while he was not dressed for the game and when the student’s doctor indicated that he placed those bets due to an adjustment disorder with anxiety that caused him to place those bets to feel a part of the team?”
Is the punishment appropriate for the crime? Red Raiders fight for Sorsby
Yes, Texas Tech thinks a two-game suspension would be enough punishment for Sorsby to admit to betting on his former team while he was 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 for Sorsby will send the message to current and future athletes who hide in the shadows of the stigma of mental health issues and addiction that they must remain silent and never seek help or treatment because the NCAA will take a punitive approach by automatically applying the maximum sanction,” Texas Tech argued.
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It should be noted that Brendan Sorsby did not come forward with his gambling problems until the NCAA was informed of his past transgressions, and Texas Tech was not aware of the problem when he enrolled at the school. It was information sent to the NCAA which launched this investigation.
Now Sorsby, along with Texas Tech and the entire world of college athletics, awaits a district court decision that could shake every foundation we currently live under.
