The Opening Drive 6/8: Brendan Sorsby Granted Injunction; No Longer Supplemental Draft Option
The NCAA was proven irrelevant once again in a court decision that threatens the integrity of the sport.
I know this is a Cleveland Browns website and we stick there most days, but today’s district ruling has the potential to impact sports at all levels. As someone covering the Browns, it would be negligence to ignore the case with Texas Tech’s Brendan Sorsby given his potential to join the league this summer — especially with the Browns as one of the teams would could vie for his services. But following this morning’s news, the NCAA is in a very dangerous place. After a prolonged period of appeals and denials, the NCAA’s stance on Sorsby is moot. The star quarterback, who has a prolonged gambling history including betting on his own team, has been granted the coveted temporary injunction in district court that will allow him to play the 2026 season in Lubbock.
Just last week the NCAA denied the appeal from Sorsby and Texas Tech for all the right reasons. You simply cannot be allowed to place sports bets on your sport and especially your own team. Court filings revealed Sorsby placed bets on his own team 40 times and used family members’ or friends’ gambling accounts to evade detection — $90,000 in total bets over four years.
Following a two-hour hearing last week in Lubbock County District Court, with the decision in the hands of Judge Ken Curry, a retired judge from Tarrant County, Curry asked for additional documentation and was expected to render a decision within days. Sorsby’s attorneys asked for a ruling by June 15 so he could decide on entering the NFL supplemental draft by the June 22 deadline.
Sorsby’s legal team — led by Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney who negotiated the House v. NCAA settlement, and Dustin Burrows, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives — argued that Sorsby suffers from a serious mental health condition that should constitute extenuating circumstances. They contend the NCAA “weaponized his condition to shore up a facade of competitive integrity, while simultaneously profiting from the very gambling ecosystem it polices.” A secondary argument: Sorsby never bet on a game he actually played in, and his gambling was demonstrably addictive behavior rather than an attempt at financial gain — evidenced by low-stakes bets on things like Australian Open women’s doubles, Turkish basketball, and Romanian soccer.
Over the weekend, on June 6, the NCAA as expected denied Texas Tech’s appeal to reinstate Sorsby’s eligibility — an expected development given the nature and extent of his infractions. That made the injunction essentially his only remaining path to playing college football in 2026 and today he was granted that injunction and further opens the door for more nefarious behavior in the sport. This has the potential to do damage far beyond the scope of current fears surrounding NIL.
The ruling said that Sorsby "demonstrated that he will suffer a probable, imminent, and irreparable injury if this Court does not issue this temporary injunction because he will be unable to participate as a member of Texas Tech University's 2026 Football season." The NCAA responded below.
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The Browns would have been in an interesting place if Sorsby was eligible for the NFL’s supplemental draft. He can play, without a doubt, and we have covered as much here at Browns Film Breakdown.
Just last week Todd Monken, notably, said it would be a "slippery slope" to draft Sorsby in the supplemental draft. Given the Browns' quarterback situation with Watson and Sanders, that's a pretty clear public signal Cleveland is staying away — even though it’s easy to make the analytical case for him. The Browns can also be adept at publicly stating one thing and doing diligence and making the tough decisions later.
Who knows where Sorsby would have gone in the supplemental draft. Personally, I thought anything before a fourth-round pick would have been a massive risk given all of the surrounding circumstances. The NFL could also have gone their own route for punishment as they’ve been known to do with other supplemental picks over the years. But now we won’t know any of that. Sorsby will serve a “slap on the wrist” two-game suspension as Tech plays Abilene Christian and Oregon State, and then go about building his draft stock once again on the college level.
Sorsby will obviously be one of the more debated prospects in the 2027 cycle. The talent will put him in all the big quarterback discussions following the year, but this issue won’t just disappear. He will get his NIL collections from Tech but he will face the type of appropriate challenge from teams who have to trust him to be the “face of the franchise.”
For now, we inch closer than ever to losing the NCAA as we know it. The sport is teetering on the brink of changing to something none of us will recognize. As the court systems continue to leave their fingerprints all over decisions made by the NCAA, eventually the house of cards is going to fall. Who knows where it all lands. Today’s ruling makes it tougher than ever to see the sport landing somewhere better down the line.
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