Big 12 Enters Multiple Federal Court Filings Aimed to Stop Brendan Sorsby From Playing in 2026

The Big 12 has made its move to try to keep Brendan Sorsby from ever playing a snap of football at Texas Tech.

Multiple reports noted the league is filing for a temporary injunction and a declaratory judgment at the federal level to enforce its bylaws against TTU. Sorsby is currently eligible to play in the final 10 games of Tech's 2026 season after a judge granted him an injunction against the NCAA to avoid punishment for his roughly $90,000 in sports bet made this decade.

"On Monday, the conference filed a 47-page complaint against Texas Tech, the Texas attorney general, the system’s chancellor, the school president, and athletic director in seeking declaratory judgment and a preliminary injunction to enable it to enforce its bylaws," Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger wrote. "In this landmark case — a league filing legally against one of its members — the Big 12 is asking a federal court to bar Texas Tech and the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, from preventing the conference from 'exercising its right under its bylaws to sanction Texas Tech,' according to the complaint obtained by Yahoo Sports, which was filed in the Northern District of Texas in Dallas.

"The league is not seeking damages in the filing and is not challenging a state court ruling deeming Sorsby eligible, but is instead asking a federal judge to permit it to take action against the Red Raiders in light of legal threats made by the Texas attorney general, whose letter to the league last week seems to have triggered the Big 12’s filing. The letter from Paxton’s office demanded that the league refrain from exercising its governance authority, characterizing any sanction as an antitrust violation and threatening joint liability against the conference."

The Big 12 is clearly not messing around here.

No one outside of the TTU president and athletic director thinks that Sorsby should play another down among the league's governing powers.

All the other schools are aligned against Texas Tech here, and the Big 12 has every right to exercise punishment against a fellow member as a private entity.

"During the week prior to filing this Complaint, TTU communicated its intent directly to the Conference to field Sorsby in Conference football games," the filing read. "Though TTU has been asked by both the Conference and many University Presidents, Athletic Directors, and other representatives of Big 12 Member Institutions to choose not to field Sorsby in Conference competitions, TTU has not agreed to such requests."

Sorsby has openly admitted to not only betting on college football, but also on his own team at the same time while playing for Indiana early this decade. Add in the fact he allegedly broke federal wire transfer laws, and you get something much bigger than an impaired mental health case to support an at-risk athlete like his legal team is leaning on.

Getting this situation out of the TTU-friendly Texas courts and into the federal court level is the playing field Big 12 powers want to fight this case on. Sorsby is eligible to play this fall after his two-game suspension for now, but that could change quickly if a federal court grants this injunction and the Big 12 gets to yank TTU's conference revenue away if it fields Sorsby.

The Big 12 is weighing taking away that revenue or barring TTU from appearing in the 2026 Big 12 Championship game.

"In an industry that rarely agrees on anything, there is finally an issue that everyone seems to agree on (other than TTU and the Attorney General): universities should not field players who have bet on their own team’s games in college athletics," the filing noted.

Check out more on the situation from Dellenger here.

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