Brendan Sorsby can play for the Texas Tech football team in 2026 after he serves a two-game suspension as a presiding judge in a Lubbock court granted the senior quarterback an injunction against the NCAA on Monday, June 8.
Sorsby’s legal team headed by New York attorney Jeffrey Kessler and the NCAA’s team led by Taylor Askew presented arguments in the case on June 1 in Lubbock’s 99th District Court.
“This court finds that the Applicant has demonstrated that he will suffer a probable, imminent and irreparable injury if this Court does not issue this temporary injunction,” Judge Ken Curry wrote in his ruling, “because he will be unable to participate as a member of Texas Tech University’s 2026 football team, including Texas Tech’s 2026 football season and:
∎ 1) Benefit from the elite coaching, training, resources, camaraderie and regimen that only being a member of a Division I college football team can provide.
∎ 2) Build the skills necessary to maximize his own success during the college football season as well as that of Texas Tech’s football team and each of its players, and
∎ 3) Make an informed decision regarding whether to enter the 2026 NFL Supplemental Draft.
The NCAA had declared Sorsby permanently ineligible for acknowledged violations of its rules that prohibit gambling. A May 29 court filing showed that Sorsby had made at least $90,000 in impermissible wagers since 2022 and that he did so at each of his three college stops: in 2022 and 2023 at Indiana, in 2024 and 2025 at Cincinnati and in 2026 at Texas Tech.
As conditions of his granting the injunction, Curry ordered Sorsby to continue clinical counseling with an individual credentialed in treating gambling disorders and participating in peer support through Gamblers Anonymous or a comparable mutual aid community and commencing and continuing treatment for an anxiety disorder.
Sorsby’s counsel must file monthly reports attesting to his compliance with the terms and detailing his activities the previous month.
Sorsby was a high school athlete at Corinth Lake Dallas. He threw for 2,800 yards in each of the past two seasons with 18 touchdown passes in 2024 and 27 touchdown passes last year. He transferred to Texas Tech in January and threw four touchdown passes in the Red Raiders’ spring game.
Tech announced on April 27 that Sorsby was taking leave from the team to enter a monthlong inpatient treatment program for gambling. Simultaneously, news broke that the NCAA had started an investigation into Sorsby’s gambling, long a prohibited activity for players and college athletics employees.
Sorsby’s inpatient treatment took place in Goodyear, Arizona. He enlisted the services of Kessler, who filed a motion for an injunction on May 18. They sought to speed up the process, noting that, in the event Sorsby was barred from playing college football this season, he faced a June 22 deadline to apply for an NFL supplemental draft.
Later that day, Texas Tech announced that the NCAA, Sorsby and Tech had agreed upon a stipulation of facts in the case and planned to seek his reinstatement.
A Texas Tech request for Sorsby’s reinstatement, filed May 19, was denied by the NCAA on May 22. Texas Tech filed an appeal on May 29, and the NCAA denied the appeal on June 5.
Curry, a retired, visiting judge from Tarrant County, was assigned the case on May 21 after the 99th District Court’s Phillip Hays recused a day earlier.
This story has been updated with more information.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football QB Brendan Sorsby gets injunction, 2-game suspension
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal | USA TODAY Network
