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06/10 05:10 CDT College sports is suddenly facing a major question that hinges on gambling, the 'unpardonable sin' College sports is suddenly facing a major question that hinges on gambling, the 'unpardonable sin' By EDDIE PELLS AP National Writer Those anxious to tease out worst-case scenarios that could come from gambling's growing stranglehold on sports couldn't have found a better place for one of those scenarios to land --- in the middle of college football, a sport that for decades has proven uniquely unable to deal with its most-pressing problems. One bit of good news from Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby's initial victory in court this week is it produced something everyone in college sports seems to agree on: College players gambling on college sports, especially when they involve their own teams is, as Florida athletic director Scott Strickin called it, "the unpardonable sin." How to rectify this is the puzzle that will have to be put together over weeks, months or years. If the process is anything like the rest of what this industry touches, it won't be easy. The most straightforward solution would involve a Texas appeals court (all four judges are Texas Tech alums if you're wondering) overturning a surprise injunction issued by a judge (who got the case after another judge, a Texas Tech alum, recused himself) that allows Sorsby to play the upcoming season for the Red Raiders while the case plays out. If and until that day comes, there will be fingerpointing, lecturing and posturing, all of which has flowed freely in the wake of the Sorsby decision.

One Big Ten and one SEC school take action while Big 12 debates The strongest statements came from athletic departments at Nebraska and Georgia, each of which called on their coaches not to put Texas Tech on their schedules in any sport. Not that big a sacrifice for two programs in different conferences from Texas Tech, but something to keep an eye on if, say, a not-unthinkable matchup between the 'Dawgs and Red Raiders comes up in next season's College Football Playoff. Less convincing was what came out of the Big 12 offices Tuesday: a statement from commissioner Brett Yormark highlighting a productive conversation with athletic directors "as we continue to work through the broader implications of this situation." It's easy to say Texas Tech should be sanctioned for backing a player who broke through the third rail of big-time sports by betting on games involving his own team (when he played for Indiana). It's the sort of move that turned Pete Rose into a pariah decades ago. But the Big 12 deliberations strike straight at the heart of college sports' problems. The schools are individual businesses corralled into widespread conferences and all are members of the NCAA, which tries to regulate them while answering to them as well. The teams in these conferences compete among themselves, but then the leagues compete against each other, and those stakes can be worth billions and, sometimes, the conferences' existence themselves (see: Pac-12). Texas Tech, with a billionaire regent in Cody Campbell who is an outspoken voice in the college debates, is one of the Big 12's top teams and thus one of its top programs in terms of earning potential. So, while it's easy for a school from the Big Ten or SEC to talk big, the Big 12 taking action against one of its own, possibly to the league's own detriment, will prove a bigger ask.

Banning sports gambling while taking the sponsorship money Meanwhile, the comparison to Rose and his baseball gambling scandal seems almost quaint when set against the realities of today. Back then, sports gambling was outlawed virtually everywhere. These days, sports gambling is legal in 39 states, accessible on your phone app in 30 and, in dozens of places, actually paying millions in sponsorship deals to the very college programs that disdain this kind of activity by their players. That makes some of this outrage feel phony. It also makes it plausible that a judge could look at that and parse the difference between breaking the law and breaking a rule written by the NCAA, which has lost virtually all of its most important court cases over the past decade when it comes to athlete rights and well being. It has, however, been steadily banning players for gambling. At minimum, the judge in the Sorsby case bought into the idea that the quarterback would suffer "irreparable harm" were he forced to sit out while the case unspools.

Congress says it has solutions; will anybody buy into them? Had the NCAA already been granted some sort of limited protection against lawsuits, the likes of which it seeks from Congress, then, some lawmakers argue, its restrictions against gambling could have been shielded from the courts. "It seems insane that someone could gamble on his own team and his own sport and then litigation would conclude that the NCAA didn't have the power to regulate that," Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Tuesday. Even that seemingly obvious logic won't make it easier to bring home the toughest solution of all --- passing a bill that Coons co-sponsored that would give college sports some of the same antitrust protections enjoyed by the NFL and other pro sports leagues. The big splash made last month by the introduction of that bipartisan Senate bill was quickly drowned out by critics from both parties, along with the SEC and Big Ten, all of whom are looking for different answers to regulating an industry that is proving ungovernable. Without the antitrust help or the rest of the rules Congress might provide, college sports stays on a hamster wheel of papering over disagreements about paying players, allowing them to transfer, the sports calendar headaches, eligibility issues, the future of the playoff. Now, gambling leaps to the top of the list. If an appeals court doesn't step in, expect Sorsby to be on the field in September, by which time we'll know a lot more about whether college football responds to a problem that pretty much everyone agrees is an unforgivable sin. ___ AP reporters Mark Long and Joey Cappelletti contributed. ___ AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

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