Andy & Ari On3 - How will Brett Yormark & the Big 12 RESPOND to Brendan Sorsby’s eligibility at Texas Tech?

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

As the Brendan Sorsby news continues to spark plenty of reactions throughout college football, will the Big 12 and Brett Yormark do anything about this? Watch here as Andy & Ari continue to discuss the Brendan Sorsby saga now that the QB is eligible to play during the 2026 season with Texas Tech. Will anything come out of this, or will Sorsby play the rest of the season after serving his 2-game suspension?   (0:00) On Today's Episode (0:48) Intro: How will Big 12 respond? (9:51) How this situation will unfold (16:38) Will Texas Tech self police any of this? (21:00) The NEED for Collective Bargaining (29:59) Big 12 Scenario (30:24) Texas Tech = Ultimate Villain? (41:51) What's Ahead? (43:55) Is Clemson still BUILT to LAST? (56:15) Thanks for watching!   Once the fellas wrap up discussing the saga with Brendan Sorsby, the guys shift gears to the state of South Carolina, where Dabo Swinney looks to bring Clemson back to its winning ways. Sitting down with Chris Low, Coach Swinney believes that the Tigers are built to last in the ACC. How will the Tigers compete this season? With 9 NFL Draft picks heading out the door, how will 2026 look down in Clemson? Find out here as Andy & Ari dive in.   Thanks for watching!   Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/join   Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/UVX5a_APD8E   Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari Wasserman Producer: River Bailey   Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's Andy and R on 3, the fallout from the Brennan Sorsby ruling continues, and it is rippling all through college sports. But the biggest question is, is the Big 12 going to do anything? Or is everybody just going to yell really loud? Also, what happens to Brennan Sorsby and Texas Tech? How is this all going to play out for them as it goes forward? We'll talk about that. Plus, are Chris Lowe at on 3? We talked to Davos Sweeney about a bad year last year.

And what happens next? And Sweeney says, hey, I ain't going to the beach anytime soon. Will he get Clemson better this year? We'll talk about on today's Andy Daryon 3. Welcome to Andy and Ari on 3. And this Brininsoresby thing has a lot of legs. All right. A lot of leg.

Long legs, yeah. We talked about doing SEC power rankings today. Yeah, we're not doing. doing that today because as Monday night kept going and as Tuesday morning kept going, there's just more and more questions, more and more tentacles of this story. And so to recap, Texas head quarterback Brennan Sorsby got an injunction granted by a court in Texas yesterday that will allow him to play. He was caught gambling on Indiana while a member of Indiana's team. he also placed a lot of other bets in violation of the NCAA's gambling rules.

But the court has said the NCAA cannot enforce its rules, and therefore, Brendan Sorbsby can play, provided he sits out the first two games. And so this has made a lot of people mad. Basically, everybody except Texas Tech fans and the Texas Tech organization, everybody's mad about this. But my question, Ari, is anything going to actually happen? anybody going to actually do anything about it. Yeah, it's funny that we are talking about this.

And because like I was thinking last night, you know, after we record our show, which goes up in the mid afternoon every day, like the reactions to this kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And it occurred to me that, you know, is it possible that there's a big enough ground swell in distaste for what is going on here, both the court ruling that has put Sorsby in a position to play, but also Texas Tech for allowing it to happen, is there enough of a groundswell of anger, which leads into some of the other things that we're going to talk about here in a minute,

like scheduling and all those other things, that Texas Tech would opt to do something on its own or the Big 12 would try to act to rectify it. Because here's the thing, and we were trying to come up with it last night, College football is a very controversial game. There are a lot of things that happen within the confines of college football and the craziness that surrounds it that are very controversial and cause disagreements. Has there been anything this impactful or this type of news story or this type of case or court case, whatever, that has had the entire sport. Every analyst I follow, every team account that I follow that's not Texas Tech has the same exact reaction to this.

There's no variance in opinion here. Right. So do you think that there is a big enough movement in the court of public opinion that can sway this to go a different direction? Well, I think we're going to find out. And it's not necessarily the court of public opinion. It really comes down to what the Big 12 is willing to do. So it came out on Monday that the athletic directors at Nebraska and Georgia sent memos to their staff saying, hey, all of you guys, all you different teams that represent us.

do not schedule Texas Tech. They said, you know, we don't want you guys scheduling Texas Tech. If you have a game scheduling it's Texas Tech, let us know, and we'll figure out what to do about it. But that's an SEC team and a Big Ten team. Like that doesn't necessarily affect Texas Tech. From a football standpoint, those teams weren't scheduling Texas Tech anyway. So now, granted, the other sports they might have, but that's- Other sports that Cody Campbell cares a lot about.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and look, you just saw Texas Tech play with the softball national championship. This is not, it's not just a football issue at this point. It's an athletic department-wide issue. But football is the sport that matters. Football is the sport that makes the most money. The question is, will the Big 12 do anything? That's the one that really matters to me. And I reached out to someone in Sorosby's camp today and said, hey, is there any concern that the Big 12 could go nuclear, that they could say, we're not playing Texas Tech or, you know, because this is the question our viewer Jesse asked on the show yesterday.

While we were recording a show, Jesse sent an email saying, is it possible that the Big 12 teams on Texas Tech schedule could just not play them? And I don't think independently they can do, I mean, they can independently, but if they did it independently without the blessing of the league, then it's just a forfeit. Yeah. Wins that game.

It's not, all you did was piss off ESPN or Fox, whoever was supposed to televise the game. So the question is, would the Big 12 do something official? Well, you see, I'm sure you saw,

the listeners who listen to the show have not been read this statement, but Brett Your Mark from the Big 12, the commissioner, sent out a statement last night around 5 p.m. Central time. And I want to read it to you. The ramifications of

Today's ruling are significant and could have broad impacts across college athletics, creating great concern amongst our membership. I've been consulting with our key stakeholders and have scheduled a meeting with our conference ADs and our executive board this week. We are also in touch with Charlie Baker and anticipate the NCAA to appeal the order in the next 24 to 48 hours. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation. And like maybe that's a boilerplate statement, Andy, but Texas Tech is in the big 12. Like, let's not forget.

Yeah. This is the conference commissioner that they're in voicing displeasure in the situation. And I think when you said it. But he's voicing displeasure, but he's saying he's kicking it back to the NCAA, which is the thing here. They want the NCAA to be the bad cop. They want the NCAA to be the boogeyman. The NCAA is handcuffed here. The NCAA has been kneecapped by the court.

There's nothing the NCAA can do. They are going to appeal. And that appeal is not going to be heard until. The season's over. So it doesn't matter. He's going to play unless the Big 12 decides to do. And this is interesting because I did a column on this last week, Ari, about what would it look like if the SEC and the Big Ten broke away

and just played by their own rules and played each other. The reason I wrote it is because Jerry Moorhead, George's president, had said the week before, well, we could just go play our own thing. And then Kirby Smart was like, oh, yeah, I'm for that. Well, here's the part of the playing your own rules, the doing your own thing that everybody doesn't talk about until you actually have to think about doing it. And Greg Sanky actually talked about this. So Greg Sanky is the SEC Commissioner. He talked about this a few weeks ago.

He said, people have to want to be governed. Translation. If we discipline you, you have to be willing to accept the discipline. Right. Texas Tech's not willing to accept this discipline. Now they could say, well, Brendan Sorsby sued the NCAA, not us. But he wouldn't have done it unless you'd have supported him. If you had kicked him off the team, the moment this stuff came out,

he's not suing the NCAA. Or maybe he is, but it's not to play for you. And nobody's mad at you right now. So you're choosing this. Meanwhile, the Big 12 has to choose. Do you want to be the good cop? or do you want to do something? And I don't think they're going to do anything.

I don't think those schools will have the guts to do anything. So at the beginning of the show, and you know I like to tend to feelings, I talked about the court of public opinion. The court of public opinion also, you know, who's in that court? Administrators, athletic directors, players, coaches, I wonder if there is enough of a ground swell within the conference confines, those people that would urge or sway Brett Yormark to try to do something. I don't know what he can do, Andy.

You read the bylaws last night. You can take us through them. But if he decided, hey, you're not eligible to win the Big 12 this year or whatever. And I've also seen thought processes, too, of like the only championship in college athletics that's not governed by the NCAA is the CFP, they could make them ineligible if they, you know, I don't know. Or they can't. I mean, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, basically all their rules say we, we, we're

just going to follow with the NCAA says on eligibility. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm just trying to spitball here, but I'm, I, I just, I feel like, I, I got the sense last night and I'm not smart enough to come up with the exact solution. You're smarter than me. Maybe you have one. I got the sense last night that this isn't just.

over with. It's not. Unless, well, it is if they don't do anything. No, I got the sense that someone's going to try to do something. Who's going to try to do something? Yeah, that's the problem. Humor me with specifics. Who is going to try to do something? What happens? I can give you a potential scenario if you'd like. Yeah, can I go first and you can tell me if it's stupid. Yeah. What if the, what if Brett Yormark writes a big 12 rule this year that says, anybody who doesn't play Texas Tech does not forfeit. So instead of it being a loss in a win in the loss column, they put it in,

because like I remember the Big Ten changed their tiebreaker rules in the middle of the COVID season. Like I'm assuming bylaws can be changed for like on the field competition. Well, that's not even in the bylaws. That's, you know, that's in the handbook basically. And they change something in the handbook that that incentivizes people to not play them if Sorsby's on the field and if they do they don't get a loss it's just a it's just an open week well theoretically they could do that so the bylaws are pretty broad the way they're written

it's it's basically they can punish a member they can sanction a member if they have a super majority i believe it's a 75% super majority so that would be 12 to 16 votes and it leaves it open at least in the copy of the bylaws I read, leaves it open to do pretty much whatever you want, but it does give a few examples in the clause I read, which is they could, examples are prohibitions on appearance in postseason events or televised events, restrictions on revenue distributions,

limitations on recruiting or scholarships. So theoretically, they could vote to take them off TV. in conference games, which would be a massive penalty. I don't know if they would do that. Well, also would TV be okay with that? That's the other question. Yeah.

If you're Fox and ESPN and you're paying for the Big 12 to televise them, you're paying for Texas Tech this year because they're a very, yeah. You're now told you can't have the best team. You're going to come back to the Big 12 and go, okay, we're going to alter this agreement then. We're going to alter the check we send you,

because we paid for the whole thing, and you just took away the best team. It doesn't strike me as a television executives move to sing kumbaya around the campfire to protect the integrity of the game. That is not something they care about it. Add dollars, add dollars. Yeah, as producer Rupert points out,

the game that now will be a really interesting game, that Houston game in Lubbock, on Friday, September 19th, actually is that September 18th. They moved it to whatever that Friday is. 18. And it was a whole, yeah,

it was a whole big deal because the Texas. Yeah, remember. People didn't want it moved because they don't want to plan on Friday night because high school football is sacred on Friday nights in Texas. But that's part of the contract.

They took the money. Mm-hmm. They could take less money and only play on Saturdays, but they took the money. Not going to tell them it on Cincinnati game, Andy? Yeah. Yeah, the Texas-T Cincinnati game, I think, is now must-see TV, right? I mean, it already was, but now it really is much C-T-Must-C-TV. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I, but like, what if, what about my thing?

Do you think, so you would leave it up to the schools in your scenario. They don't forfeit, you're saying. Texas Tech doesn't receive a win for games not played. Who do you think would not play them? Who do you think would decline to play them? Let's pull up the scale. I don't know the answer to that question. Is it everyone or no one?

I don't know. I think that's the answer. I think it is everyone or no one. Now, Pete Nacos, our guy, talked to a coach yesterday who said, you don't want to play the Joker without his arm. You want to play the villain and beat the villain. So that's probably one that would like to play. They would like to play.

Yeah. That's the other thing. at the spirit of this whole thing, they're playing a football game and people are probably going to want to beat them or try to beat them. Well, that's going to be the most interesting thing because like I said,

I don't think the other big 12 schools are going to do anything. I think there's a lot of forces that play here that would keep them from acting here. And I also think it's a lot easier to say fun things into a microphone or to a cell phone speaker than it is to actually apply in real life.

Yeah. Because here's the thing. If they do this to Texas Tech, the first time one of them's in Texas sex shoes, which will happen. Yeah. They're going to get it too. Yeah. That's why these leagues love having the NCAA to be the punching bag and to be the bad cop.

Yeah. You don't want to have to do this. It's hard. It's hard punishing your peers. The NCAA is a mall cop dressed up in a police officer's uniform now, right? I think mall cop is giving them way too much authority. What authority does a mall cop even have? Well, they get a segue a lot of times, which is pretty awesome.

But they can't actually do anything, right? You can't kick people out of the mall. Okay. You can't kick people. Yeah, that's wild. Okay, so I'm trying to think like a squad car that has no authority to pull people over arrest anybody. The NCAA is the guy who buys the old Dodge Charger that was once a police car that still has the spotlight on the rear mirror. And scares everybody on the road for no reason.

Exactly. Exactly. Producer Rivers says they're the Geeks squad with no geeks. No, they're the geek squad with all geeks. But they can't fix your computer either. I mean, yeah. So this is like an interesting segue, I think, to the next thing, Andy. Which is, do you believe that Texas Tech, that there's even a 1% chance that Texas Tech will self-police this?

No. Okay. No, because they supported Sorsby in this. Yeah. Whether they had their names on the lawsuit or not, they supported Sorsby in this. They could have ended this a long time ago. Like, they don't have to have Brendan Sorsby on their team. When the NCAA came to them and.

presented all this evidence saying he gambled on these games. Their response could have been, oh, well, we got Will Hammond still. That's not what they did. They clearly want Brennan's Boresby playing quarterback for them this year. And Brin Sorbsby is going to play quarterback for them this year. If anybody thinks that public pressure or everybody being mad about this is going to push him into the supplemental draft, because remember, he could still decide that in the next couple of weeks if he wanted to go into the supplemental draft. It's not. He's more incentivized to go play for Texas Tech this year. Yeah. I mean, I guess you don't go through the entire fight arm and arm and then decide, well, we won, but we're not doing it now. But I guess Soresby also

could make the decision, too, that he wants to separate himself from this. But I also wonder, too, if these types of things would follow him to the NFL if he were to decide. Oh, I don't, I don't think it's a good idea. I think if you can play, if you're him, if you can play at Texas Tech, you play a Texas tech. Yeah. Because right now, Now you go in the supplemental draft and all they have is all this evidence against you with the gambling stuff, the tape you've put up, which is good, but you've also gone one in 11 as a starter in November. These things matter.

If you're Brendan Sorsby, you can erase a lot of the on-field questions by playing well this year, which let's be real here. In the NFL, the on-field questions are far more important than the off-field ones. We know that. the history of the NFL tells us that. The off-field stuff, you can help yourself too, though. Because if you have a year where you don't gamble, and remember, the people in the NFL,

the NFL teams, when they comb through all of your life before they draft you, they know what you've done. They know. So if he doesn't gamble this year, they will know that. Yeah. And that will help him. Do you think that Brendan Sorsby is, is a good enough player to make the juice worth the squeeze.

That remains to be seen. Yeah. At times he has been. Because I was thinking about it. At times he's not been. If you actually did a straw poll of Texas Tech players in the locker room, do you want to be hated in a way that makes people maybe not even want to play you? as a result of the difference that you get between Will Hammond and Sorsby

in terms of an output standpoint. I think everybody likes being hated. Like, it's cool being hated when you're Bama, right? Because they hate you because you're good. But this is a different type of distaste that I think is a little bit different. And I also feel like playing him or Sorsby himself is illustrating a selfishness that might take away, you know, from the experience of his teammates, which is another element to-

care about being hated. In fact, I don't know. That probably helps. That probably helps motivate you if everybody hates you. You've been in a locker room before. If like half the SEC was like complaining about you and not wanting to play you from a...

It doesn't matter because they want... When you're on the team that everybody hates, it doesn't matter why they hate you. It just matters that they hate you. Yeah. I buy that. I buy that. Yeah.

So I think actually that probably. helps. Yeah. I mean, I guess the Joker is the Joker and doesn't matter why the Joker's the Joker. Pretty much. Pretty much. So I think thinking that Texas SEC will just do that, you know, oh, never mind. No. If they were going to say, oh, never mind, they would have already done that. Yeah. I've been kicking around what to write on this. And I don't know exactly which way to go with it. Although I did really enjoy your column this morning. go check that out if you haven't seen it. Yeah, I talked about a little bit yesterday with just saying, hey, this is the thing that should push them toward collective bargaining.

I get a lot of, well, but collective bargaining is impossible. No, it's not. I actually wrote a column several months ago about what that would look like. Believe it or not, there have been people thinking about this for years. Just because you started thinking about it today, doesn't mean other than thinking about for years. And I'm talking about me. I'm talking about people actually in the,

the sport. So I wouldn't be saying this if I weren't talking to people in the sport who've been trying to figure this out for a long time. And at this point, yeah, it's still really difficult to do, but ultimately could be the best way to do it because you could have rules that you could actually enforce that the players agreed to. And it's not just rules about gambling. You could have a salary cap. You could have transfer rules. You could have eligibility rules. All of that. So I don't mean to make it sound like some of utopia, but it would make it the most lawsuit proof you could make it. And you don't necessarily need federal action. It would just be the biggest way to enforce rules or the most effective way to enforce rules.

And let me answer what some of the most common questions are about that. Okay, all these states have different laws. For example, South Carolina has a law that public employees can't un un unionize. Can't collect a little bargain. Okay. The players are employees of the league. they're not employees of the universities. So they're employees of a private entity based in one state that goes by that state's employment laws.

That simplifies things quite a bit. Yeah. Now, do you do it with all college athletes? No. You do it by sport. The people who play sports that make money, you make employees. The people who play sports that don't make money, you give them a choice. You say, we can give you a full scholarship, tuition room and board, and you can come play

the sport. Or we can do a revenue share deal with you. So at the end of the year, when we split up how much revenue we made and what we spent, we'll send you a bill. I think that decision will be pretty easy for most people. Yeah. You can still do NIL stuff. Like if Libby Dunn, if LSU Gymnastics loses money, she's not going to take the bill. She's going to take the scholarship. But Libby Dunn's still going to make a bunch of money. She's still going to do ads. She's actually like one of the richest right IL recipients of in any sport ever. So exactly. So it like that would still be available to you. But that's that's the thing. It's not impossible. It is difficult. It's incredibly difficult. But it's not impossible.

Yeah. Brick by brick, Andy, right? You know, you start off. You get you get there. And I, so I wanted to work. You get producer River Bush Jones flashbacks with that. You can't do that. Are you can't, you can't use that phrase. I want a workshop for five minutes with you real quick, a column that I want to kick around, and I want you to tell me if you think it's stupid, writable, or meh, okay? Okay, yes. I've been trying to think about individual players

who have gone into the wrong side of the public eye, but I don't know if there's many examples of that. What I do want to understand is if you are Cody Campbell and you are Joey McGuire, your ultimate goal in the world is to make Texas Tech and Elite Football Program. You're okay ruffling feathers by paying and doing all the things that it takes from a modern day roster building standpoint in order to compete. You're okay paying somebody more money to come to your school than to go to a rival in-state school. But here's what I really want to know. Is this how Texas Tech wants to achieve their goal?

Is the juice worth the squeeze? Let's say Brendan's- I definitely think you should write that column, but I think you have your answer as to how Cody Campbell feels on that topic when he tweeted out last night. Asking Grock how many Georgia players had been arrested. Because they're not viewing this as any different than that,

And look, I'm willing to have that conversation with people. Because, yes, there are players who have done things from a human-on-human, like the Georgia thing's a driving thing. There are players elsewhere who in the past have done things horrible to their fellow human beings and then been allowed to play. Like, you want to go back to when I was in high school, Lawrence Phillips at Nebraska? like allowed to play. So, I mean, especially if you do like NFL stuff,

sexual assault or domestic abuse, there's people who are playing in the NFL who have done. Tyree Kill. Yeah. I mean, Oklahoma State actually handled Tyree Kill by not letting him play. Mm-hmm. In the NFL, that's not been the case. Joe Mixon at Oklahoma.

I think that we both agree that from a morality standpoint, Sorsby isn't in that bucket, right? Like from a moral thing. But when you write the column, you are putting him in that bucket. And so I can understand that it's a nuanced thing

where this is not about Bryn Nsorsby himself, it is about whether you can enforce rules about gambling or not. And whether you could have a rule on the books that says you can't gamble on your own sport. And why that would be important for a sports league. to have.

But that's different. Let's pretend that Brendan Sorsby throws 4,000 yards this year, has 40 touchdowns and 10 rushing. Texas Tech advances to the national championship game. And they have this awesome, remarkable season

where they are one of the best teams in college football and they've arrived as a program. Doing so with the cloud over their head that they permitted the player who helped bring them there to do something that's unprecedented because regardless of what morality bucket you want to put him in, he committed capital murder of sports rules. Like that's what that is.

And there's a reason why there have been NCAA cases settled about selling tattoos and, you know, taking kids out to lunch for burgers on recruiting trips and all the stupid things that used to write about at SI. But even when those rulings came out, there wasn't a public groundswell of distaste as a result of that. Some of the rulings were heavy-handed. Some of them were not heavy-handed at all. But the reason why people are so upset in this specific instance isn't because they don't like Texas Tech. And isn't because- Agreed, but I'm telling you that people at Texas Tech are going to come back with many people have done things worse to their fellow man. And you didn't get mad about that.

So nobody has done anything worse to the game. I think you could make that case. And still play. Some people have done worse to the game and have never played again. That's the work. Yeah. That's the column. This isn't an abuse or public. But I'm telling you right now, I am telling you what the question will be back to you. And that's perfect because then you've given me ammo to what to write about.

Yeah. Because that is the thing people will immediately jump to. And the question about DeGronk is the lead of the column. Yeah. No, I think it's a legitimate conversation to have. we are talking about different things. You know, I had somebody on Twitter, what about the Sandusky stuff?

And what about the stuff with Ohio State and Michigan State? Those are way worse. Oh, yeah. But there are people whose jobs are to deal with that stuff. It's not the NCAA. The NCAA's job is to deal with this stuff. And that's the difference. Yeah.

Nobody here is saying that worse actions haven't been committed. Right. It's just the NCAA has no mechanism to punish for that or enforce it or rules against it. And it's actually outrageous to even expect them to be that. That's what law enforcement exists for. There's police officers and FBI agents for a reason. Yeah. So that's why.

Ari, the thing about this case that's amazing to me is it is really piqued the curiosity of the listeners and the viewers. Just in the last few minutes, as we're recording this, I've gotten two emails from fans of the show that are great questions that we haven't even hit on yet, and we need to answer these questions. I don't know that we necessarily have a satisfactory answer yet, but this is stuff that everybody's thinking about, and we're going to need to be thinking about too.

So let's start with Tyler. He says, hi, Annie and Ari. Putting to one side, the whole hub of around Big 12 schools boycotting their games against Texas Tech. Is the Soresby News best or worst case scenario for the Big 12? Best. Put a target on the conference's back and if tech is able to go on a playoff front, everybody is talking every week about the Bad Boy Conference,

higher ratings for the conference and creating a clear brand in a murky environment. Worst, the Big Territation can be hurt by association and the other conferences could look to ostracize the Big 12 as a result. There are definitely other reasons, but wanted to hear your thoughts. So great question. I have an immediate response to this. And I wanted to ask you before we get into the meat of it. Was best case scenario was outlined in the question already the case before this happened?

No. Not like this. Not like this. This is amplified it, I think. Now, that's the thing. We don't know if it actually amplifies it. Does this make Texas Tech must see TV? I think that Texas Tech was,

already becoming that because of all of the Texas drama. Like, do you think that there are casual fans who aren't logged in to listen to our show every day more amped up to watch Texas Tech because of the news this week? Or do you think that they would have already been an interesting television property in general because they're just better and they have SORs be on their team? Like, I just, I don't know the answer to that. I think this makes the casual fan who just watches their team's game and then isn't really sure how they're going to portion out the rest of their Saturday.

I think this makes them interested more in what's going on with Texas Tech. Well, there is the concept that I've been seeing a lot of on NBA Twitter as we're in the playoffs and now into the NBA finals. And this was certainly happening during the Western Conference finals a lot, Andy. People were posting memes and were excited to watch the Thunder play because they hate the way SGA plays and draws fouls. And that there were a lot of general fans who were like, had a vested interest in the spurs, I felt like, during the last round because they wanted to see

the evil empire of foul drawing. They were hate watching. Yeah, they were hate watching it. So do people hate watch tech? Okay. Well, that brings me to the question that Rich just sent us. Listening to the talk about how pissed everyone interested in college football is, that is not a Red Prater fan, how likely do you think two scenarios are, and what is the reaction to them,

assuming stories we plays? every close call and even some not close ones go against the Red Raiders, particularly plays it involves Sorosby. Someone gives Sorsby a blatant, late, and dangerous hit. Obviously not hoping or encouraging these things, but there's at least some chance that they happen. And let me throw another one out there. And this is a response I got on Twitter from one of my stories

that I thought was pretty interesting. This is from Eric, who's a Utah fan. Every incomplete pass, every interception, every fumble, every sack, etc, et cetera, et cetera, will be viewed by the college football world as Sorsby's involvement in point shaving to cover his bets. This will be Texas next season in a nutshell

and it deserves all of it. That's from Eric, the Utah fan. So there's two ways of looking at that though, Andy. Because on one hand, Brendan Sorsby would be the worst person in the world to like surround a point shaving scheme around. Right, yeah. That's not something I'm worried about.

Yeah. But I get what Eric's saying. everything's going to be implied because of everything you already know. Yeah. I mean, I think that everything that we know about Sorsby is going to follow them into the season through every single play, every single half of the year from a narrative standpoint. I don't know, like, this is the actual real question that should be paired with the outrage, Andy, do you actually feel that Sorsby as a result of what we know about him and what he's admitted to doing

provide an actual threat to relapse his behavior and still do it while Texas Tech plays this year, or do you think that it's just as a precedent thing? I'm not worried about that because I think the security on him from Texas Tech is going to be so tight. Like you couldn't even imagine to do that, yeah, even if you want to do. Yeah. So that's not something I'm worried about at all. I am curious about this, though.

Will people hate watch these guys, or will they be mad about this now and just forget about it when the season begins because so let's go to September 18th that's that Friday night they're playing Houston Houston was one of the best teams of Big 12 last season if Houston beats Texas tech the shot in Freud's off the charts but if Texas Tech wins and they keep winning do more people keep tuning in to see if they get knocked off or to see if they keep going yeah I mean I think it goes hand in hand. This is like like think about this. The Texas take the Texas tech hate drink is a cocktail. Okay. Texas tech being hated for Sorsby also has intertwined undertones of the hatred that already existed because they are trying to break through and get to the cool

kids table when there's gatekeeping involved in that. So Texas tech, I think in general, a lot of people, I think hypocritically hate, watched them last year because they're like, you can't buy your way into our club, although their teams and their favorite programs are also buying players. There is that gatekeeping. So you already have the element of the thing that made Texas Tech quasi controversial last week. I mean, like, it's been a week, but we were talking about tech and Texas a week ago. And that is a completely different thing where you have the entire state of Texas,

which is a big place that is very passionate about football. already despising their attempt at backdooring their way in or front during their way in financially to their club. Now, on top of that, a person that they are paying five or six million dollars to is the center of this huge gambling situation that everyone has distaste for, but it's also a player that was expensive. It was also a player that everybody else wanted that wasn't supposed to have, they were supposed to have. So not only are they taking this player who was the number one quarterback, player in the entire transfer portal window or one of the three slam dunk names and they're protecting their investment, one that people are already resentful that they even made

by protecting him and shielding him from rules that are supposed to end your career. So I think that like the cocktail is pretty potent because it's not just one thing. Let me ask you this. If Oregon State's quarterback did this, would this be a two-day event on our show? Probably not. I think that Texas Tex ascension into the spotlight already has magnified this. It's Texas Tex ascension. It's the fact that like you just said,

Brendan Sorsby was a top three name in the transfer portal. It's all of that at once. Producer Rivers just has the question, what if he'd gone to LSU in this had happened? Oh, boy. It would be even more supercharged. I saw all the memes too of like Lane Kiffin getting ready to be the villain of the 2026 season and then Texas Tech standing behind them like with those like goggles on.

You know, and it's like who is more hated? Like, who do you think is more hated by the general fan right now? I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say that I'm more excited about the Texas Tech at Cincinnati game than the LSU at Ole Miss game. Yeah. Don't get care. But I am going to say it's a little bit closer than it was two days ago. Yeah. And Cincinnati might have an opportunity to troll.

And I don't know how they'll do it. it or what they'll do, but they have an opportunity to do funny things. Ari, can you imagine if Cincinnati won that game? Can you even imagine? And what if what if that's what knocked Texas Tech out of the Big 12 championship? Or knock them out of the playoff picture? I don't, I mean, it happened early enough in the season. But here's the other thing, too, if you want to go Galaxy Brain with me like I always do every day.

as a general fan of the sport and somebody who has a college football podcast, you always tease me for not knowing about what's good for business. Is it better for college football and the product itself for Texas Tech to win games early on in the year to create the intrigue? Because if they lost twice in the first half of the season, then like the story goes away. Oh, everybody, yeah, everybody laughs at them and it goes away. No, no, no.

It's better if they keep winning and then they get into, well, The Cincinnati game will be interesting either way. But then let's say they are a one-loss team in November, it gets very interesting because they are not necessarily a team that can get in with two losses. No. They probably have, I mean, if they win the Big 12 championship, that helps them because you have the automatic bids for the highest-ranked conference champs. But actually, I take that back.

I take that back. If they win the Big 12 this year, it doesn't matter. Because remember the rules changed this year. The Big 12 champ is in. So. But here's the thing. I don't want the Sorsby discourse to distract us from the fact that Texas Tech otherwise is a very solid team all around. Like the fact that we're talking about how they could lose twice, like they're, let's not forget that at the beginning of the off season when the team total numbers are coming out, their number was 11 and a half.

Like they're not supposed to lose. Yeah. And they weren't supposed to lose with Will Hammond. So even if Soresby is 10% better than Will Hammond, which probably isn't enough to go through all this, but that's the conservative prediction here. Texas Tech is not supposed to lose to anybody they're playing. So there's a high likelihood that they will run through the schedule.

People will play, you know, fold them and hold them song. And make all the posters. The gambler by Kenny Rogers, respect to classes. Yeah, Kenny Rogers, you got a no wind, hold them, hold them, whatever. You know, I get it. this is something that's happening all year. And I don't anticipate that they're not going to be in the CFP race in November, if not already in by the end of November.

So it is fascinating. But Texas Tech, like people already resented Cody Campbell because I think there's a huge difference in this, Andy, and I can't really explain the psychology here. But if you are a rich program that has a bunch of Fortune 500 companies behind you and a bunch of different people donating, I feel like that's less like worthy of being hated than one random rich person. I think it's the individual rich person. Old money has hated new money since the beginning of time.

There's a reason they make us read the Great Gatsby in high school. That's the entire theme. Is that why? Yeah. I thought that was a great book with a lot of great sexual innuendo in there. Old sport. All right. We are going to talk more about this as stuff happens.

Big 12 ADs, they have their regular. Here's the thing. We're talking about the big 12 ADs are going to meet this week. The big 12 ADs meet every week. But they have a lot more to talk about this week. The presidents are going to meet. They have a lot more to talk about. We don't know what they're going to do.

but it's definitely worth paying attention to to figure out where this goes. Because like I said, I don't think they're going to have the guts to punish their fellow program in the Big 12th in a very, in a serious, meaningful way. I don't think they'll do it. But I didn't think the judge was going to rule in favor of source me either. So I've been very wrong once this week already. I would not count against me being wrong even more. Just ask my wife. Life on the line, Andy.

Mm-hmm. Yes or no. Will the Big 12, will the CFP, will the NCAA, will somebody do something that flips the story on this head in the next few weeks? I would say yes if my life depended on it. Somebody will attempt to do something, I think. I don't think that. Okay, somebody may attempt to do it.

I do not think they will succeed in doing it. So I think lots of angry words will be uttered. Some harshly written statements will be released. And then some coach will pop off at Media Days and forget about it. Oh, Media Day is going to be, yeah. Yeah. We're going to Big 12 Media Days. That's going to be fun.

That's in a month for now, I think in four weeks from right now. So, yeah. Yeah. Which, by the way, is going to be a Texas Tech event, by the way. I hope you. Hey, we had Cody Campbell on last. Last year at Big 12 Media Days. I wonder if he's going to come on this time.

You might. We're going to get some new sheets and pillows for the guest room for you, bud. Beautiful. Can't wait. Can't wait. Ari, they are not the only thing in college football, though. There is a wider college football world outside of Texas Tech and Brendan Sorsby. We did talk about Niko Maliava last year for a whole week.

So this is like nothing compared to that. This is nothing. But we do need to talk about Davos Sweeney. Because our man, Chris Lowe, visited Clemson. interesting story on Davo Sweeney that came out on Tuesday, add on three. Dabo basically saying,

hey, listen, I ain't ready to go to the beach yet. As he points out, he is currently the same age Nick Sabin was when he got to Alabama. That's wild. Mm-hmm.

He's also currently about the same age, Bob Stoops wasn't when he retired. So there's a couple ways to slights that. Davo Sweeney is youthful and energetic. but at the same time has very big old head energy. Yeah, it kind of always has. Yeah. Even when he was when he was 39, he felt that way.

Yeah. Here's what he told Chris Lowe. What I do know is that we're taking Clemson back to the top. That's right. TCBTTT, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, said Sweeney, or renowned master of acronyms. When I got hired and I said, hey, we're going to win the national championship.

Everybody laughed at me. I'm sure they're laughing now, But again, it ain't about what everybody says about you. It ain't about what ESPN thinketh. It ain't about what Paul Finebom sayeth. It's about what you see. A lot of people always see me as a D plus. He's talking about the grade that Pat 40 gave him when he got hired.

But it's about what we see. It's about how we think. That's the only thing that ever matters. That is a great quote. You know what matters right now? Clemson was a really average team last year with nine draft picks on it. Now they don't have those draft picks. Yeah. Here's the thing I take exception to. And I think the guy's an icon. That quote that you just read, if you didn't tell me who said it, I would have known who said it. Like that is the most dabbo thing I've ever heard in my life. It was incredible. This is the one thing I've never quite understood about Clemson and Davo Sweeney. And this might be controversial to some. But if you've ever listened to our show before,

You've heard me say that I believe that Dabo Sweeney belongs on the Mount Rushmore of modern-day college coaches. There's no question that I have the utmost respect for what he's done at Clemson, what he's turned that program into, and what they were able to accomplish under his leadership. But sometimes in the offseason, when I read the comments and things that he's even said on our show, outlining ACC championships and 10-win season and all these things, there's something that doesn't click with him and I don't think ever will. And that's the standard of your program when you win two national championships in three years elevates. And saying ACCC titles in 10

win seasons as a way to show your success might have worked in the first five or six years of your tenure there, but that's not acceptable anymore. It wasn't one down year. Clemson hasn't been a national championship contender for what, four or five years now? It's been a long time since Clemson Clemson was a really elite level top end team. And they were supposed to be last year and last year is what

is the brunt of this whole conversation because they had more draft picks than wins as we've outlined on this show earlier. Let me read you a dabble of Sweeney quote to Chris Love. There are narratives and there are facts. We haven't been as consistent as we like to be, but who has?

Name the teams who have been to the playoffs more than we have in the last six years. Name them. It's a very short list. The list is Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, and Ohio State. It is a very short list. Do you know what the difference is between those programs and Clemson? They weren't losing to a team like Syracuse last year.

They also are playing in conferences that we would deem to be at a higher level, too. So you get a little bit more credit for existing in those. Well, right. And Clemson did make the playoff in 2024, but it backed door. its way in. By winning the ACC, which doesn't hit the same as winning the Big Ten or by winning the ACC getting elevated because it was a higher rank conference champ, because it wasn't in the top 12, getting elevated to be the 12 seed in the playoff and losing in the first round of the five seed. Like that's not going to be good enough. You said it.

That's exactly what I'm what I'm talking about. Like he is right. Like when he says these things, like Clemson has been a consistent 10 win team. Clemson has been in the playoff, all these things, but like context in stats are very different. And yes, you are correct when you name out all these different things that Clemson has accomplished. But there is a look about it. There is a feel about it. The Clemson fans in that wonderful town have come to expect a national championship contender. And what is the last year, Andy?

Your encyclopedic, Who Am I? One Guess Brain is needed right now. when is the last time you thought in December or November that Clemson could win the national championship? Has it been five years since then? Has it been six years? I don't know how long it's been, but I do remember that they were already sliding or beginning to slide a tad the first time you ever had me on my, on your show. And I believe that that was in 2019. So, so is it okay if they win the ACC this year is all forgiven? What if they are like a nine and three team that wins the ACC and makes the playoff? Is that meeting the standard? Or is the standard changing?

And it's interesting because go to Clemson's practice facility. You know, it says on the wall, the standard is the standard. But it seems like the standard is a jellyfish when he's talking. It's a sliding scale. It is. But I don't think Clemson fans view it that way. I think Clemson fans view it that way. view it as the standard you set in 2016 and 2018 when you run the national title.

Yeah. Is that the new standard? And I probably venture to say, and sometimes I'm really good at reading fans and knowing how they feel and sometimes I'm terrible at it. I think they would agree with what I'm saying, right? Like, I don't think I'm being irrational. I think that you can have the utmost respect and want to give a coach's flowers while also demanding that you live up to the standard that you yourself set. How many coaches have been fired because they failed to live up to?

the standards that they set. Ask James Franklin how much 10 wins seasons matter. And now Franklin didn't win two national titles or do what Dabo did. But I'm just saying, coaches get fired all the time for giving a team or a program a new taste of success at the highest possible level and then eventually are dismissed for not being able to replicate it. Yeah. And so that's the challenge for Dabo. He can talk about what he's, he can talk about what he's done because he did it and he has every right to talk about that it happened but doing that raised the standard to a point that he now has to meet and whether he meets it or not is going to be very interesting because i would argue he has not met it the last few years so now he's got to

figure out how to meet it you got to figure out how to do it without as much talent probably as he had last year. But when he says the quote that you started this segment on too, I am the age that Nick Saban was when he took over at Alabama. That to me is an implication that he plans on being there for a very long time. Oh, 100%. And I'm not necessarily sure he's going to be welcome there for a very long time if he doesn't meet the standard. I don't, like maybe I'm talking out of my ass here. I guarantee you that's how people are recruiting against him right now. That statement is not an accident. That statement is made to tell recruits I am going to be here.

Do not listen to anyone else. I am going to be here. Is he right? Well, that's not his choice. I know, but he gets to make it his choice by winning a lot. If he doesn't win enough, it won't be his choice. Just a fun podcast, no stakes, just doing our best here type of question for you. Clemson's 8.4 this year.

Is he back the following year? It depends on how the four look. The four are ugly as shit. I don't know if he is. And that is saying, I say that knowing the Clemson administration, Graham Neff, the AD, all the president, the people in charge,

they fully respect everything he's done. They are ultimately grateful. They are indebted to Davos Sweeney for getting that program where it is. But if they were eight and four the four look bad, I would not be shocked if they did something. By the way, the regular season win total for Clemson on Ben, MGM, seven and a half. Yeah.

Losses to LHU, Cal, Virginia Tech, and Duke. You're going to lose to Miami. Virginia Tech is a win. Lose to Duke or lose to Virginia Tech and beat Duke. Yeah, the at Cal is a tricky one. That's a Friday night. This is a, by the way. By the way, South Carolina could be good too.

We don't know what South Carolina is going to. Sneaky hard ACC schedule this year. Yes, agreed. Agreed. Going to Cal on a Friday night, then playing Miami. We don't know what Florida State is on the road. We don't know about Syracuse yet because it's like, Steve Angelly and Syracuse beat them last year.

See, that's the game Steve Angeli got hurt in. But they beat them at Clemson last year. Yeah. Having to play two SEC games. is not the best boon for your win totals, especially if you're not playing well. But like, the expectation is that they are supposed to get better after losing nine picks to the NFL draft.

So that is, yeah, exactly. The math ain't math in there. And so it's going to take, it's going to take a great coaching job by Dowell-Sweeney. Which he's capable of in fairness. Yep. But I'm fascinated to watch. them this year because, listen, I was convinced this time last year, Dava was going to prove us all

wrong, that his way was going to work, that retention and development was going to work. And they just weren't good. They were bad. And according to the NFL draft, it wasn't because they didn't have players. And I don't know if it's better or worse that they were bad because of coaching or because they didn't have good enough players. Like they had good enough players. So what is more alarming to you?

I would, is it more alarming to be good or to be bad with good players or to be bad with bad players? I'm more alarmed by what happened than if the players had been bad. If they had one guy drafted, I'd be like, oh, well, maybe the really good players are still on the roster. I actually think that I would be alarmed by the other one more because that would be. I'm alarmed by all of it. I feel like coaching can be fixed. And like if there was like a bad vibe in the locker room or whatever new team, new year, new people, like you can fix that.

If you're not getting good players, you're just doomed. That's what, as Florida State. They had good players. What? Yeah. They had good players. But I'm saying at least you have a hope of having good players again. If you ever get to a point where you don't have good players, you're just, that's it.

No, I think as long as Dabo is there, there's hope of having good players. Yeah. Which I think you hope that he can turn it around, in my opinion. Yeah. So now we see. He can talk all he wants. They're going to have to play that. schedule and we will find out whether it's good enough or not. And it has to be better than it was last

year. It has to. Ari, maybe tomorrow we'll be able to get to the SEC power rankings. Maybe, maybe. There's a lot of hours left in the afternoon. Is it Jimmy Kimball used to always joke about bumping that day mouth? I feel like we keep doing that. Yeah. We also have my big 10 power ratings ran today. So we have some we have some meat on this. We're getting to that this week sometime. I'm going to do the ACC ones. Don't promise. We're getting to it. Don't promise.

Okay, I promise nothing. I'm not devil. I'm not promising anything. I promise we'll talk to you tomorrow.