The new Texas Tech quarterback’s talent is obvious. The below clip from Brendan Sorsby’s time at Cincinnati captures the accuracy, touch and anticipation that makes him a potential first-round talent. It doesn’t capture the full picture, however.
Before I explain that situation, here’s where the 22-year-old sits in our 2027 QB prospect rankings:
That ranker, Nick Baumgardner, gave Sorsby a tier to himself. Here’s why:
💬 “Purely from a talent standpoint, Sorsby probably fits somewhere in the middle of Tier 1 as a potential first-round pick.
“He’s huge but a great athlete at 235 pounds, with plus burst and natural escape skill. He’s a smooth passer on the run, and he has good arm talent and a lot of confidence over the middle. As a player, at times, he might remind you of a bigger Jaxson Dart.
“Off the field, however, teams will have to do serious homework.”
What happened with Brendan Sorsby?
The summary of that homework: Sorsby’s admitted to betting about $90,000 on college and pro sports. It might cost him his career.
The most important part of his ongoing legal battles are two months from the 2022 season, when Sorsby made at least 40 wagers on Indiana football totaling around $800. At the time, he was the Hoosiers’ scout-team quarterback, an 18-year-old redshirt who didn’t compete.
The wagers stopped two weeks before his debut. “Once I became part of the active roster with an opportunity to play, I immediately stopped betting on Indiana,” Sorsby wrote in a statement.
“However, my gambling on other sports did not stop; it escalated and became compulsive. What started small when I was in high school turned into a daily habit of betting on all kinds of sports, including some sports that I didn’t follow and had no interest in like tennis and Romanian soccer. Gambling became an addiction.”
Sorsby, who transferred to Texas Tech this offseason, won a temporary injunction last week that, for now, will allow him to play this season despite the NCAA having permanently banned him. You read all that right.
- That decision would cost Sorsby just Texas Tech’s first two games, both of which will be against multi-touchdown underdogs. If he plays, many worry that the cost to college sports will be severe.
- The NCAA is appealing the decision, in which Judge Ken Curry found that Sorsby “demonstrated that he will suffer a probable, imminent and irreparable injury” if he cannot play college football this year.
If Sorsby plays, he’ll be the first known athlete in a major sport to admit to gambling on his own team and still be allowed to play, our college football expert Stewart Mandel notes in his scathing remarks.
“Every major American sports league has a rule regulating gambling on sports,” wrote the NCAA in its opposition response, “because it goes to the heart of the integrity of the athletic product.”
In response, Texas Tech’s own conference, the Big 12, has filed a lawsuit that attempts to leverage the league’s rules and bar Sorsby. For what it’s worth, the NFL’s supplemental draft deadline is next week.
Next: Ranking NFL coaches by current winning percentage
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Current coaches, ranked by winning percentage
Bo Nix was curious. Presumably it was because the Broncos’ sophomore quarterback wanted to see whether his 62-year-old coach, Sean Payton, would stick around for the bulk of Nix’s career. Or, after a handful of weird moments, maybe he even hoped for the opposite.
Either way, prior to the Broncos’ Week 14 game in 2025, Nix asked Payton how much longer he plans to coach. “Shoot, plenty of time. Eight years, nine years, whatever,” Payton recalls saying, having recently agreed to a five-year contract that keeps him in Denver through 2030.
That means more chances for Payton to become the first head coach in the Super Bowl era to win championships with two different teams.
With a 32-19 regular-season record and three playoff wins since joining the Broncos in 2023, Payton ranks among the top 10 coaches in winning percentage with their current teams. (And keep in mind he had to help rebuild a team that’d gone 5-12 before his arrival.)
This chart also makes one thing clear: What Andy Reid has done in Kansas City is incredible. He is the only active coach to win at least 70 percent of his games across more than two seasons — and he’s done it for 13, after having a winning record across 14 years in Philly.
Combine Reid and Payton with Jim Harbaugh, and the AFC West remains stacked even as first-year coach Klint Kubiak replaces Super Bowl champ Pete Carroll, who failed to win any division games last season.
Fantasy football note 📈: Kubiak’s been experimenting with a “football robot from heaven,” moving Las Vegas’ star tight end, Brock Bowers, around during practices. Our Sam Warren writes that while “the Raiders are still figuring out how best to use Bowers, it’s clear he’ll be a focal point of the offense wherever he lines up.”
Extra Points
▶️ RIP. Aldon Smith died at 36 years old. The former 49ers All-Pro, who saw his career derailed for off-field issues, was delivering pizzas to a homeless charity on the morning of his passing. He spoke about his post-career struggles in this podcast.
👀 NFL’s most versatile. Film expert Ted Nguyen ranked the top 10 do-it-all players, a list that includes Puka Nacua. 👀
📓 Minicamp storylines. Eleven teams take the field for mandatory minicamps this week, and Mike Jones shares every key storyline. Yes, the Falcons have a QB competition between Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr.
🔬 Biggest risk for Rams. As any “Star Wars” fan knows, even a Death Star typically has a vulnerability. For Sean McVay’s team, that weakness is the offensive line.
▶️ Thursday’s most-clicked: College football’s top quarterbacks, ranked. Arch Manning is No. 1, with the controversial Sorsby a bit lower.
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