Brendan Sorsby injunction doesn't have to be end of college football

What does it mean when a college football player can get away with gambling on his own team?

That's the question I've been wrestling with since yesterday when a Texas judge granted Brendan Sorsby an injunction against the NCAA, clearing the way for the Texas Tech quarterback to play this season. Even after he was declared ineligible by the NCAA for a gambling habit that led him to bet on Indiana several times when he was a member of the Hoosiers.

The court found that Sorsby would suffer "a probable, imminent and irreparable injury" if he wasn't allowed to play.

No kidding. That's why it's called a punishment. Actions have consequences. Or at least they used to.

That takes me to the original question. If one player gets away with gambling on his own team, it's only a matter of time until another tries. And if the NCAA can't consistently enforce rules to curb that activity, because local courts are siding with athletes whose earning potential might be harmed by suspension, college athletics are effectively over. Slowly but surely, the games will lose their integrity, because fans won't be able to trust what they're seeing.

Which is why college football, at the forefront of this issue, has to pull out all the stops to ensure that doesn't happen. The people involved have several means to go about stopping Sorsby from playing (since judge Ken Curry and Texas Tech administrators have no interest in saving the sport). It seems like all of those options are on the table.

On a conference level, Big 12 athletic directors have had "serious" talks about not playing Texas Tech, Yahoo Sports reported. On a wider scale, other power conferences are having similar discussions, with individual schools like Georgia and Nebraska already deciding they won't play Texas Tech. The College Football Playoff could pull out the ultimate trump card and ban Texas Tech from the postseason altogether, which is already being looked into, according to USA TODAY Sports.

These are all good options to put pressure on Texas Tech to sit Sorsby and send a message that such brazen and potentially harmful gambling won't be tolerated. That these drastic measures are being considered illustrate how real of a threat the betting issue is considered to be to the future of college football.

You snooze, you lose

After all the commotion to get Donald Trump to MSG for the NBA Finals, did the President actually fall asleep during the game? That certainly appears to be the case in shots from at least one moment during Game 3.

That came after the president got booed during the national anthem. And to make his return to MSG worse, the Knicks lost for the first time in these finals, keeping the Donald Trump sports curse alive... and sparking an unusual beef between Trump and Stephen A. Smith.

Gallery of the Day

Quick hits: Wemby cheap shot ... Giannis trade list ... and more

• Victor Wembanyama got away with a cheap shove on Jalen Brunson in Game 3, but the Knicks guard isn't about to complain about it.
• The Heat are reportedly one of four teams that have a shot at Giannis Antetokounmpo this offseason, and whether they can land him will tell us a lot about if Pat Riley still has the juice.
• The Mystics' bench was all smiles for Caitlin Clark's game-winning logo 3-point attempt... until it went in. Then, it was celebration time for the Fever.
• Dylan Larkin revealed his three-team destination list of NHL teams he'd want to be traded to.

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