Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt defends school amid Brendan Sorsby saga – USA Today

Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt defended his university’s role, or lack thereof, in the ongoing Brendan Sorsby saga while issuing support to the Red Raiders’ star transfer quarterback shortly after he was granted a temporary injunction by a Texas judge that will allow him to compete in the 2026 college football season.
The ruling from Tarrant County Judge Ken Curry on Monday, June 8 prevents the NCAA from punishing Sorsby for violating the organization’s rules on sports betting.
In his statement, Hocutt noted that Texas Tech did not file or fund Sorsby’s lawsuit.
“A young man in treatment for a clinically diagnosed addiction exercised his legal right to seek a remedy in court, and a judge agreed with him,” Hocutt said. “Our role has been to support his recovery, not engineer his eligibility.”
The Red Raiders have become a magnet of intense criticism from across the college sports world in the 48 hours after Curry’s decision. In a Yahoo Sports story, Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor described Sorsby’s reinstatement as “f***ing bulls***” and another Big 12 athletic director, who requested anonymity to the outlet, said Texas Tech “should be ashamed of itself.” The idea of schools refusing to play the Red Raiders in any sport has been publicly discussed by athletic administrators, including Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks, who told Yahoo that his school could not “in good conscience put our student-athletes on a field where the competitive integrity of the contest is compromised and overridden by the courts.”
Hocutt said that while he understands the frustration of his colleagues, there is “no perfect answer” to the predicament.
“I’ve heard the word ‘integrity’ used a great deal in the last 48 hours,” Hocutt said. “As someone who has dedicated his career to college sports, I, too, believe integrity is central to our industry’s success. I also think integrity applies on more than one front. The integrity of sport matters. So does the integrity of how we treat a 22-year-old who sought help, entered residential treatment, and is working every day toward recovery. Those two things don’t have to be in conflict.”
The NCAA declared Sorsby ineligible after it was revealed he had bet about $90,000 on pro and college sports over a four-year period. Most notably, that rampant gambling activity included 40 bets he placed on Indiana football in 2022 while he was redshirting with the Hoosiers. The NCAA prohibits its athletes from betting on sports.
Sorsby underwent a 35-day in-patient treatment program in Arizona for diagnosed gambling and anxiety disorders. While Sorsby’s attorneys and Texas Tech have frequently cited Sorsby’s mental health challenges, NCAA lawyer Taylor Askew said in a hearing that the organization considered those when ruling Sorsby permanently ineligible before ultimately deciding they did not excuse his actions.
Hocutt said Texas Tech is “operating on a comprehensive clinical and compliance structure that we committed to before the court ruled in Brendan’s lawsuit” and that the university is “where we can extend him the best possible support in his ongoing recovery.”
“Pulling him out of a structured environment, away from his team and support system, does not protect anyone,” Hocutt said. “It might be a cleaner headline, but it wouldn’t be the right one. And it wouldn’t be true to the institutional values that guide us every day.”
Curry said in his ruling that Sorsby’s attorneys, led by Jeffrey Kessler, demonstrated that their client would suffer from “probable, imminent and irreparable injury” if he were unable to compete for the Red Raiders in 2026.
Under the terms of the court ruling, Sorsby will miss Texas Tech’s first two games of the 2026 season, non-conference matchups against Abilene Christian and at Oregon State. Hocutt said any further punishment beyond that will depend on how Sorsby’s recovery “continues to progress.”
“The system we’re operating within is binary, but the situation is not,” Hocutt said. “We are open to ongoing conversations about how to best handle these issues as an industry going forward. We will continue to be transparent in our decision-making. Most importantly, we will keep doing what we have always done, put our students first.”

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