The ever-changing landscape of college athletics continues to get altered by legal rulings, and the latest one has a chance to directly impact Arizona teams’ upcoming schedules.
A judge in Texas ruled Monday that Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby can play this season despite being caught betting on college football, including on his own team when he was a freshman at Indiana. Sorsby, who transferred from Cincinnati in the winter, had been banned by the NCAA for his sports betting but Judge Ken Curry of Texas’ 99th District Court issued a temporary injunction.
Curry, a Texas Tech graduate whose courtroom is in Lubbock, ruled that Sorsby would “suffer a probable, imminent and irreparable injury” if not allowed to play for the Red Raiders, who reportedly are paying him $5 million for the 2026 season.
The NCAA has filed an “accelerated appeal,” according to The Athletic, with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh District of Texas. All four judges on that panel graduated from Texas Tech.
In the immediate fallout after the judge’s ruling, some schools—Georgia and Nebraska—have publicly announced they won’t schedule Tech for future games. But that might just be the start of a boycott.
According to ESPN, the Big Ten is expected to discuss in the upcoming days a leaguewide mandate not to schedule Texas Tech, while the Big 12’s athletic directors are set to hold a conference call Tuesday to discuss the issue. And the ADs from Kansas State and TCU told ESPN there has been “informal chatter” within the league about its own schools not playing Tech, though the likelihood of that seems small.
Arizona is set to play Tech at least once in nearly every team sport during the 2026-27 season, with football making a visit to Lubbock on Halloween. Volleyball visits Tech a week later, while both men’s and women’s basketball will face the Red Raiders at least once during Big 12 play and the UA baseball and softball teams could also have games on their to-be-released schedules in the spring.
