Rick Neuheisel details Brendan Sorsby's future plans after phone call

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CHICAGO – The message could have been ignored. The phone call never returned.

Instead, Brendan Sorsby picked up the phone and called back Rick Neuheisel. So did Sorsby’s father, Jamey, a former Texas high school football coach.

Neuheisel once was NCAA Public Enemy No. 1 because of … an office pool – a 2003 NCAA men's basketball tournament bracket in a neighborhood competition that today would have gambling detractors swimming in hypocrisy.

A former head coach at Colorado, Washington and his alma mater, UCLA, Neuheisel cautioned Sorsby, the ex-Indiana, ex-Cincinnati, presumptive Texas Tech quarterback now barred from college football, from becoming embittered.

“All of a sudden people thought I was unscrupulous in betting on college sports, when I had been in a basketball pool while coaching at the University of Washington,” Neuheisel, an analyst with CBS Sports, told USA TODAY Sports Wednesday, July 29. “I said there will be a tendency to want to be very bitter, to think that somebody had it out for you. And having lived through this, I can tell you that bitterness only impacts you. It doesn't get anybody that did you wrong, doesn't hurt anybody else.

“So, this happened, you have an opportunity to rebuild and go from here. Call it a life lesson and go be a fantastic role model in whatever it is you choose to do.”

Sorsby, Neuheisel shared with USA TODAY Sports, did provide insight on his future plans.

“Sorsby was fantastic, he's 100% buying in and wants to just focus ahead,” said Neuheisel, who won a Rose Bowl as UCLA’s quarterback and also as Washington’s head coach. “He actually thought about staying there (at Texas Tech) and just being the scout team quarterback, but he didn't want to be a distraction. He just wants to have this opportunity.

“He's hoping that he can get into the (NFL) Combine, maybe the Senior Bowl, and hopefully get a chance to be in an NFL camp as soon as possible (in 2027). All that to be determined.”

What has no mystery, Neuheisel emphasized, is the root cause of Sorsby’s “inevitable” lure to compulsive gambling.

“I don't think the Brendan Sorsby outlash was necessarily pointed at Brendan Sorsby,” Neuheisel said. “I mean, what did we think was going to happen when you can bet on your phone and you can bet on balls and strikes, and you can bet on damn near anything, right? The Kalshi (predictive markets), now you can bet on anything you want. What did we think was going to happen? We have all these ads about betting and, you know, getting your first $200 free (in bets). They're going to lure people in. And the college kids are a primary target, so he got caught up in it. He's admitted it, he's rehabbed, and he's on a platform to go forward.”

Neuheisel theorized the vitriol directed at Sorsby – on the surface – had an undercurrent of disdain for Texas Tech, which has seen its football program become in the pay-for-play era what Sorsby has been painted in gaming reform.

“The backlash was by a bunch of schools that really don't like what's happening at Texas Tech, which to me is you're using big money to just basically go buy everybody else because you've got a couple of fellas, John Sellers and Cody Campbell, who made a billion dollars from Double Eagle Energy. Listen, we've had big-money donors for a long time in college football. Most of it was under the table. Now, money is over the table. There's some jealousy, there's some outlash, ‘We're not playing (Tech).’ And while integrity of the game is certainly an issue, to me, it's that he got bought by Texas Tech and Texas Tech was fighting to get him to play. Enough was enough.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rick Neuheisel details Brendan Sorsby's future plans after phone call

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