How NOT to Save Face

L'affaire Sorsby is over.  After realizing nobody was on their side (shocking, I know!) and facing the very real threat of sanctions from the Big 12 if they did attempt to let him play, Texas Tech and the quarterback gave up.  Sorsby dropped his lawsuit against the NCAA and declared for the NFL Supplemental Draft.  It'll be very interesting to see if any NFL team actually decides to take a chance on him (is it too early to make "he should play for the Raiders" jokes?) or if they all stay away.  Regardless, Sorsby won't be playing college football this season.  Something he had absolutely no business doing.  (And, frankly, he doesn't belong in the NFL either.)

There were no winners in that entire situation.  In fact, all it did was make everyone look pretty bad.  The NCAA.  The University of Cincinnati.  Brendan Sorsby and his supporters.  The judge.  But nobody looked worse in the whole ordeal than Texas Tech.

I don't know if Texas Tech was trying to do damage control or rationalize or get people to "see their side" or what exactly, but whatever it was, it didn't work.  It actually had the opposite effect.  Every time Texas Tech made a statement or released a very ill-advised propaganda video, they only made things worse.  They certainly didn't do Sorsby any favors.  All they did was make him (and themselves) a bigger villain.

Texas Tech, I think, was trying to make themselves out as conquering heroes who were stepping up to help an addict overcome his addiction.  It also seems like they were trying to garner sympathy for Sorsby (not to make light of actual mental health issues, but I can't stand the fact that "it'll have a negative impact on my mental health" has become the default "reason" for why people think they should be able to get away with anything and never face any consequences).  Here's the problem with that, though: They refused to acknowledge that he did anything wrong!  That, and how they tried to gaslight everybody else into thinking they were wrong for "not supporting" him.

Meanwhile, it was pretty easy to see right thru their position.  Texas Tech's support of Brendan Sorsby was for one reason and one reason only.  Because they thought he could help their football team win and they paid him an awful lot of money in an NIL deal.  They weren't concerned about his mental health (at least not as much as they publicly claimed).  They wanted to protect their investment.  So, even though they knew he had no business playing, they couldn't just come out and say that.

Every statement they made regarding Sorsby followed the same general talking points.  And each one was more tone deaf than the last.  I seriously don't know how they think it was helping.  It would've been better had they said nothing, especially since they knew the criticism was coming regardless.  So, just accept the fact that a lot of people don't like it and move on.  You want to make one initial statement, fine.  But, like I already said, the more they dug their heels in on their position, so did everybody else on theirs.

And the outside influence (aka the Texas Attorney General's attempted power flex) really didn't help.  If anything, it totally backfired!  Because it didn't just reinforce where the opposition already stood.  It also led the Big 12 to take the preemptive action that ultimately resulted in Texas Tech and Sorsby finally acknowledging that they were fighting a losing battle.  Which is something that should've been obvious to Texas Tech from the get-go.

That, perhaps, is why people viewed Texas Tech so cynically throughout the whole affair.  They seemingly wanted to have it both ways.  They argued that they "weren't party to the suit," yet also made it obvious that they didn't exactly discourage Sorsby from pursuing the case.  They wanted people to know that they "immediately declared him ineligible" once the NCAA made its initial ruling, yet also thought a two-game suspension was an appropriate punishment.  And, in their attempt to justify that, they claimed that he "wouldn't necessarily" immediately start playing once the two-game suspension was over.

It didn't have to get to that point, either.  There were no adults in the room.  Especially in a situation this straightforward, Texas Tech needed to be the adult.  It's an open and shut case, too.  There's no gray area when it comes to gambling, especially betting on your own team (and, by the way, you need to be 21 to gamble and he was under 21 when he began placing bets, which also made it illegal, not just against the rules).  They needed to the bad guy.  Instead, they wanted to be the good guy towards Sorsby.  They wanted to be the only ones who had his back when everyone else was against him (for good reason).

The blatant hypocrisy was hard to miss, too.  Texas Tech and Red Raider fans were acting like they were so heroic and everyone else was being so unreasonable.  They were treating Sorsby like a victim and talking about how they were "so proud" of him for "overcoming his struggles."  They even tried blaming Cincinnati for not sanctioning Sorsby while arguing the two-game suspension was fair.  However, had this happened anywhere else, you know they would've been just as outraged and among the loudest critics.  Which is why their defense of Sorsby rang so hollow.

After the judge neutered the NCAA, the Big 12 considered all options available to them when it came to sanctioning Texas Tech.  Because the other 15 conference schools were unanimous in their stance that Sorsby didn't belong anywhere near a football field in 2026.  The conference bylaws are clear.  They were well within their rights to suspend Sorsby.  The Texas Attorney General tried bullying the conference and its other schools into submission by threatening with possible legal action.  They called his bluff and filed a federal lawsuit that would reinforce the fact that they can enforce their own rules.

All of that is a moot point now.  Which, frankly, is for the best.  Texas Tech fans were the only ones who had any sympathy for Brendan Sorsby's "situation."  The fact that one friendly judge in Texas said he could play didn't change the fact that nobody else agreed with that decision.  And the controversy was only going to increase every time he took the field.  The opposition would only going to get louder, too.

Ultimately, we ended up with the inevitable conclusion.  It did achieve one thing, though.  It made Texas Tech even more of a villain than it already was.  They'd already established a reputation for using their billionaire boosters and some questionable tactics recruiting transfers (in a number of sports) in the NIL era.  People who already hated Texas Tech now have more of a reason to.  And people who were otherwise different now have a reason to root against Texas Tech, too. 

Maybe that was the point.  Maybe they want to be the villain, since they knew they already were for a lot of people anyway.  If that wasn't their intention, though, they failed spectacularly.  It was an epic PR failure on multiple fronts.  And the worst part is it was such an unforced error.  They could've done the right thing and avoided this whole mess.  Instead, they did the opposite.  And turned everybody against them in the process.