Brendan Sorsby Case Highlights Growing Gambling Problem in College Sports

Brendan Sorsby’s college football career has to be over.

No matter what Texas Tech or Sorsby himself try to argue, a player who reportedly placed over 20,000 sports gambling bets over the last four years -- including on his team’s games when he was at Indiana, per ESPN -- can not continue to play that sport at the college level if that proves to be true.

An NCAA investigation is currently ongoing to determine the veracity and severity of the betting. But given the fact that Sorsby has checked himself into treatment for gambling addiction recovery, it seems likely that investigation is going to find some damning evidence that will be too much to overlook.

It remains to be seen how this could affect the NFL career of a prolific quarterback who was one of the top quarterbacks in this year’s transfer portal class after breaking out the last two seasons at Cincinnati. We’ll see if a team takes a chance on him in the supplemental draft, which seems the likeliest path forward.

For now, Sorsby has taken an indefinite leave of absence from Texas Tech. He also serves as an unfortunate example for the NCAA of how the proliferation of gambling, particularly on college sports, can create problems.

Mind you, the NCAA hasn’t outright pushed for gambling to grow exponentially as it has since it was legalized at the national level in 2018. But it also hasn’t seemed to object to how sports betting ad reads have taken over college sports broadcasts, promoting odds boosts, parlays, promos and various other deals sportsbooks are offering to try and differentiate themselves in a quickly crowding market.

The steps some states have taken to put some guardrails in place -- a number of states, including Illinois, do not allow bets to be placed on games involving teams from that state -- are possible fixes for the problem. But it goes deeper than just that, as even Sorsby betting on a different college football team or other sports that the NCAA holds championships for would be against the association’s rules.

This is certainly a watershed moment for college athletics when it comes to gambling. A top player and likely Heisman candidate on a team which made the College Football Playoff last year and was going to be favored to make it again this year as the Big 12 champion is now almost certainly going to be ineligible.

This situation paired with the one going on in professional baseball right now where two Cleveland Guardians pitchers are facing criminal charges for allegedly throwing balls on purpose to help gamblers fix bets for single-pitch results -- ironically another type of bet Sorsby reportedly made when at Cincinnati Reds games -- speaks to the problem of the moment.

As more and more states have implemented legalized sports gambling -- we’re up to 39 states this year -- it gets tougher and tougher to avoid sportsbooks, which can at times come off as downright predatory.

Sorsby is not that different from plenty of other Americans who have fallen under the allure of a gambling addiction. It’s just that he’s in a prominent enough position that maybe some positive change can come from his situation.

Because it seems clear that something has to change.