Scott Stricklin has read about the history of major betting scandals in sports before, but he didn't expect he'd be dealing with it now.
ESPN college football writers Pete Thamel and Max Olson tracked down Stricklin for his thoughts on the judgment that allowed Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby to be eligible to play college football this season. The Florida Gators athletic director compared it to one of the most notorious scandals in American sports history, the Chicago White Sox scandal of 1919 when the team was accused of intentionally losing the World Series in exchange for a payment from a gambling syndicate.
“How (can you) trust the outcome of a game again?” ESPN story with @max_olson and @Mark_Schlabach on the unified reaction around college sports to the Brendan Sorsby ruling. Big 12 ADs will talk about it tomorrow. Can anything change? https://t.co/pytYTKWXe9
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) June 8, 2026
"As someone who grew up reading about the 'Black Sox Scandal,' and seeing what happened to Pete Rose and just understanding how bright that line seemed to be in all of American sports, I'm stunned that there would be a question at the court level that this is acceptable," Stricklin said. "That's not a judgment on the young man. It's just that was a pretty fundamental tenet of American sports, that if you're going to participate, you can't gamble, especially on your own team."
Sorsby admitted to betting numerous times on sporting events, including at least 40 times on Indiana football games while he was a quarterback on the Hoosiers roster in 2022 and 2023. He transferred to Texas Tech in the offseason after spending two years at Cincinnati. Sorsby checked himself into rehab for 30 days to treat a sports gambling addiction. The NCAA ruled him ineligible for the 2026 season on May 26, but a Texas judge overturned that decision Monday, and he will be suspended for the first two games of the season, which was the original punishment suggested by Texas Tech.
READ MORE: Florida fans should not shrug off the Brendan Sorsby ruling at Texas Tech
Scott Stricklin's opinion on Brendan Sorsby ruling mirrors nearly all college sports administrators
The ruling was met with a swift rebuke by nearly everyone outside the administration at Texas Tech with some suggesting a boycott of the school. While the Red Raiders don't appear on the Gators' schedule this season or any time in the near future, this ruling and Texas Tech's support of Sorsby taking the field have allowed for at least one administrator from an SEC school to publicly suggest that it's time for a breakaway. Georgia compliance director Will Lawler has banned Bulldog athletic teams from playing Texas Tech in any sports. There are no known games scheduled between the two schools, so this does look like some grandstanding, but Georgia President Jere Morehead's statement was far more direct.
Georgia president and ex-NCAA Board chair Jere Morehead to @YahooSports: "For anyone who has dismissed my previous calls for SEC rules of enforcement and the SEC institutions only playing each other, today’s ruling is clear evidence why that may be the only path left for us." https://t.co/W3Me241rIh
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) June 8, 2026
We're still three months from the season and either this will go the way of many scandals where it just gets lost in the news cycle until Sorsby is expected to take the field on September 18 or administrators in the SEC and other conferences will bite down and force some kind of action. We now know where Stricklin stands, and it will be interesting to see if he joins some other athletic directors in taking a stance that could completely change college sports as we know it.
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