While Brendan Sorsby’s legal battle was ongoing, Texas Tech and its top officials supported the quarterback. He was the program’s golden boy, even when supporting him made no sense. As for head coach Joey McGuire, a college football legend feels his support for Sorsby might not be a true reflection of his stance, as such cases are often completely out of coaches’ control.

“It’s completely out of his control and his hands,” former Notre Dame player Brady Quinn said on July 9 regarding McGuire’s comment on Sorsby at Big 12 Media Days. “If they continue to get up a path where legally they could continue to keep appealing and finding judges, and working their way all the way up to the point where there was no one who was going to stop his plan for eligibility, then what’s he [McGuire] going to say? He’s not an attorney or a judge or anyone else to make that decision.”

“Now, ethically, he can sit back and just say, ‘Look, this isn’t right. I don’t want to invite this as a distraction on my team or based on what he did. He seems like a great player, good guy, but it’s just there’s a lot going on here. So, I’m not going to invite that on my team.’ But ultimately it’s above him. It’s no different than if you’ve got a general manager…Cody Campbell is trying to do a lot of things within the college sports space, and, you can say right, wrong, or indifferent. He’s forcing issues that we’ve never thought would even come to the light of day.”

Joey McGuire was among the most vocal Texas Tech officials as Brendan Sorsby’s scandal began making headlines. He declared his unwavering support for the quarterback when he decided to enter a treatment program for gambling addiction. And when the NCAA’s ruling came, the head coach acknowledged the possibility of consequences for Sorsby’s mistakes; however, he opposed a penalty that would cost him the rest of his college career.

But alongside McGuire, there were more vocal and decisive voices holding greater positions within the program. President Lawrence Schovenac, AD Kirby Hocutt, and Cody Campbell, the program’s booster and Chairman of the Board of Regents, were firmly behind their former QB through his battles with the NCAA and the Big 12. The Texas Tech booster even claimed that Sorsby wouldn’t have been targeted had he been in a program like LSU.

At some point, it was no longer a battle to have their talented QB on the field in the 2026 season; it was a power tussle between the program, the Big 12, and the NCAA. And of course, losing the battle that way is a hurt they are yet to recover from.

Quinn compared McGuire’s dilemma to the NFL situation of GMs and coaches. McGuire may have simply played along rather than acting on his moral standards. Joey McGuire’s take on all of these is that the program did nothing more than support a player who was going through a mental health challenge.

Speaking to On3, he clarified that Sorsby was behind all the lawsuits and actions against the NCAA, while the program stood by and watched it all unfold. And even after the outcome was unfavorable for him, the program has decided to allow him to train in Dallas while he prepares for the 2027 draft.