Texas Tech booster Cody Campbell on Brendan Sorsby backlash: "They don't want to play us"

The Brendan Sorsby saga has put billionaire Texas Tech booster Cody Campbell in a pickle. Should he seize on the court ruling that restored Sorsby’s eligibility as more evidence of the necessity of federal intervention in college sports? Or should he circle the Red Raider wagons?

On Monday, Campbell called the decision the “outcome of a broken system.” By Wednesday, he was toeing the party line for the school he supports.

“This kid did not impact the integrity of a single game,” Campbell told Dan Dakich on Wednesday, via Sam Khan Jr. of The Athletic. “He didn’t bet on a single game he played in. He didn’t hurt anybody. There are kids that will suit up this fall who have actually hurt people and done bad things, and nobody’s talking about boycotting them or not playing them. . . . There are kids that are playing that have gotten DUIs, that have beaten up women, kids that have committed horrible acts. Nobody boycotted Penn State when that horrible situation happened there.”

So why does Campbell think so many schools have been criticizing Texas Tech?

“It’s because the college football world doesn’t think that Texas Tech should be as good as we are,” Campbell said. “We’ve been a disruptor, just like Indiana has, so we’ve been a target. The volume has gone up and a lot has been directed at me, Coach McGuire, and our university, but that’s not fair.

“If this had happened at LSU, people would say, ‘Ah, it’s LSU. They’re always going to do what they do.’ But it happened at Texas Tech, and people don’t want to compete with us. Of course ADs in the Big 12 are saying crazy things that they don’t want to play us. They don’t want to play us because they know he’s good and they don’t want us to be as competitive. They want to have a better chance at winning the conference. So they’re inherently conflicted in their opinion.”

But Campbell is conflicted, too. And if this had happened at another Big 12 school, Campbell would be trying a lot harder to leverage the situation into the legislative action for which he has been pushing so hard.

Likewise, any of the schools that have criticized Texas Tech would be doing the same thing Texas Tech is now doing, if they were the ones facing the loss of their starting quarterback for the 2026 season. It’s all obvious, and it’s all predictable.

The fact remains that Sorsby developed a gambling addiction. No one is disputing that. The addiction caused him to place many bets. He made bets on Indiana when he was on the Indiana team, but not when he was playing.

The main problem continues to be the lack of any real reasoning or legal analysis in the bare-bones, four-page court order restoring Sorsby’s eligibility. Judge Ken Curry merely checked the boxes and recited the magic words necessary to reach the desired outcome, without explaining himself.

There’s not much black and white in the legal system. Most issues land in a wide patch of gray, where it’s easy to start with the preferred outcome and work backward to justify it. That’s much easier to do when the final order makes no effort to show why the interests of justice lead to the result.

Ultimately, everyone connected to the situation is doing what they would be expected to do. A Texas judge issued a favorable ruling for a Texas school. Texas Tech is supporting Sorsby. Other schools are attacking Texas Tech. And the broader apparatus of college sports hopes that the Sorsby case and its aftermath will become the “thunderbolt moment” that sparks Congress to partially restore the NCAA’s ability to pick the pockets of players who are now getting paid what they deserve.

To date, no one has done the objectively “right thing.” Instead, they’re all saying and doing the things that are right for them.

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