Texas Tech May Sue the NCAA; Cincinnati Could Get Hammered Too Over Sorsby

Texas Tech may be headed for a legal fight with the NCAA over Brendan Sorsby, and Cincinnati could be facing serious questions of its own after reports that it knew about Sorsby’s gambling situation before last season.

On tonight’s live show, I’ll break down whether Texas Tech could challenge the NCAA, whether a “ghost transfer” QB is realistic, and how much trouble Cincinnati could be in if this Sorsby situation keeps escalating.

We’ll also dig into the Big 12’s new private capital deal with RedBird and Weatherford Capital, including how much debt schools can take on, why the league says there is no ownership stake involved, and whether this is actually a smart move for the Big 12’s future media strategy.

Plus, why does the Big 12 keep creating its own problems? Between Texas Tech’s Sorsby situation, BYU losing Parker Kingston, major coaching turnover, and playoff perception issues, the league has plenty to prove heading into next season.

We’ll also talk Jerome Tang returning to Baylor, what it means for K-State fans, and why I’m not sure this is the move Baylor actually needs right now.

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Transcript

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What a week in the old Big 12, huh? There's a lot going on. Uh, the eyes of the college football world are upon the Big 12, not always for the best reasons at this point in time. But we're gonna talk about all of it today. The latest on the Brandon Soresby, Texas Tech situation. Uh, is Texas Tech gonna try this ghost transfer thing? Uh, would Tech be so daring as to do that? Or will they just sue the NCAA over Soresby? Some possibilities there. What's Soresby gonna get the hammer laid down on Cincinnati as well? Like a lot of self-destruction going on in the Big 12 right now. Oh, by the way, the Big 12 has invested now in private capital. That deal has come through, which is obviously quite controversial. And then uh we've got a homecoming of sorts of Jerome Tang to Baylor. I want to talk about all that on the show here tonight. Welcome in. It is the Open for Business Big 12 podcast. I'm your host, John Kurtz. Thank you for joining me here tonight. This is, of course, where the Big 12 just means more. I appreciate each and every one of you for uh hanging out, bearing with me tonight on uh changing the start time, but we're here, we're rolling, we're going. Uh, please do like the video, subscribe to the channel. All that really helps. A bunch of you watch, but don't actually subscribe. It really does help me if you make one click and subscribe. We're about to cross that 32,000 follower threshold. Thank you to everybody for helping me get there. And uh you can also submit a super chat tonight if you would like. I see people already in the chat. If you want to submit a super chat, click the dollar sign below the chat box in order to do that. Uh, let's see. John dash Kurtz-4 on Venmo. You can submit a super chat there. John Dash Kurtz-4 on Venmo. If you want me to kick off the next show with your question or comment, it's a great way to stay engaged if you're not watching this live and you're coming in after the fact. And of course, sign up for the open for business Big Twelve newsletter at OFBnews.com. That is ofbnews.com. Hopefully, you guys have watched the Brendan Soresby content that I put up this week. A couple of standalone videos. There's been a ton going on. I I have to the last video I did got in-depth on the Cincinnati uh reporting. How much did Cincinnati know and when did they know it? I think is the question right now. I want to turn some of the conversation now toward like what is Texas Tech going to do? Because there was one blurb that came out in a story that I was reading from Ross Dellinger that has me really wondering where tech is going to go in all of this. Okay. So, excuse me. With that being said, is Texas Tech going to be the first school to challenge the ghost transfer rules? Are they going to try and find a ghost transfer quarterback to replace Brendan Soresby? If there's one country or one program in the country that's aggressive enough and rich enough to do it, you would think Texas Tech would be that program. Uh, how about would they be aggressive enough to challenge the NCAA, to sue the NCAA over it ruling on Brendan Soresby if it comes back the way we think it will? Let's talk about the risks. Let's talk about the likelihood it actually happens and what the consequences would be. Uh, so we all know the the gist of the Brendan Soresby situation by now, right? He has checked into a facility for a gambling addiction. The latest reporting from Pete Nakos showed that over 10,000 bets had been made since 2022. At one point, it was like an average of 20 a day, I think was the reporting on that. Um but of these 10,000 plus bets, there is one that is drawing most of the attention, and it's probably what will get Brendan Sorsby a permanent ban, a permanent ineligibility ruling. That's him betting in 2022 on an Indiana game when he was actually playing for the Hoosiers. So Soresby, I think most people expect he's he's not going to play a Texas Tech this year in all likelihood, unless, unless would Texas Tech challenge that legally with Brendan Soresby. We'll get to that. What is Texas Tech looking at quarterback-wise right now? Well, there was a report that came out earlier this week that Will Hammond is like back to at least tossing a ball around a bit, coming off of that torn ACL, and maybe he could be back for week one. Maybe. Will Hammond's got some big upside. And to me, that is, you know, if you're talking about how does tech have the best season that it possibly can outside of ghost transfer quarterback or somehow getting Sorsby eligible through courts or whatever. I mean, to me, that's that's easily Will Hammond. Uh, it's nothing against Kirk Francis, the the Tulsa transfer, or Lloyd Jones III, who played just a little bit last year. Gotta be Will Hammond, guys, right? I mean, look, you you guys know I'm all I'm a I'm a Will Hammond stan. You know, I took too much crap for that last year. Well, I know I took the deserved amount of crap for that last year. I bought all in on him after he threw for 200 plus yards or had 200 plus total yards rather than three touchdowns against Utah in relief. Um, if it's not going to be Hammond, as I mentioned, they have Kirk uh Francis, a transfer from Tulsa, who started 12 games over three years. He's got over 3,000 uh career passing yards. He's the type of guy that you bring in as a depth piece. And if you're a player that is willing to come in as a depth piece, I mean, you weren't thinking, like, hey, I'm gonna start and be the guy. Not saying that he can't be and can't be successful, but I'm gonna bank on the upside of Will Hammond there, taking tech to where they want to go this year, right? Which is winning a college football playoff game. Not just getting there, but winning one. Uh, it's a passable situation, right? Like in this era, especially, it's really hard to keep multiple good quarterbacks. I mean, it is really, really hard. Not that it's ever been an easy thing, but if you have two good quarterbacks, like one of them is just going to leave. It doesn't really matter even how much money you have. One of them is going to leave because they can get comparable money and snaps. What I would say for Texas Tech is that the ceiling on the season has probably lowered a bit. The floor has definitely lowered with what has happened here to Brendan Soresby because we don't know what's going to go on with Will Hammond's health, and we don't really know what Kirk Francis or Trey Jones would actually bring to the table. That's the situation right now. But as I said, hey, the upside's higher if it's random mystery ghost quarterback, or if it's somehow getting Soresby eligible for some of the season. So how likely is it the tech would really pursue those options? Please do subscribe to the channel, pushing to 32K and then 35K subs. We're getting close. And if you haven't subscribed, it really would help a lot if you do. There has been uh speculation for a long time that once the NCAA got rid of this spring transfer window, somebody was going to try to challenge it. Because right now, the the thing to do, if the NCAA is doing something that you don't like or that is an impediment to your football team being as good as it can possibly be, the thing to do right now is take it to court. Fillable hours. They're getting racked up. Go sue them. The NCAA is losing left and right. Challenge it. Challenge it. So that's the thought here that somebody would be like, well, how can you actually legally put a limit on when these kids can leave? How can you say there's only actually one transfer portal window? Now, if you're unfamiliar, this ghost transfer concept is taking somebody who's not actually in the transfer portal and having them transfer to your school. And if there's no spring portal window, that means right now anybody that transfers would be a ghost transfer. This the the punishment from the NCAA is very harsh here if you do this. But that would be the question. If you were to sue, would that punishment hold up? Uh, Joey McGuire, for instance, in this case, would be suspended for 50% of the season. That's what the NCAA says. Head coach gets a 50% of the season suspension, and the program gets fined 20% of the annual budget uh for football. So it could be like 20 million bucks. I mean, that's like hefty, hefty fine. And then, hey, I get the thought. I understand why people immediately started going to like, well, you know, if there's someone that would do it, it sure seems like Texas Tech might be that program, right? Because it would take deep pockets. First of all, you're you're gonna have to rack up a lot of legal fees. Uh, you would have to go find a quarterback that's gonna get paid a bunch of money to come in and play. And who knows how long this battle would go on. You'd also have to be very aggressive and like willing to go make a move like this, thinking that your season is is like really, really on the line. And we know like tech, tech does kind of embody all of those traits. But the catch here, and this is why I think the other scenario that I'm going to talk about in just a moment is much more likely. The catch here is just if you really walk through this step by step, even if you are really aggressive, even if money is no object, this is still a tough one to pull off, okay? Because it takes two to tango. You need a dance partner here. Um, in addition to it would just create a big mess and a big distraction for the team, having that hanging over your head. Is he or is he not going to be suspended? How will the legal stuff go? What will the timing of that be? It would be a bit of a mess, okay? And you'd be dragging your team through all of that. Then, if it doesn't work out, what message have you sent to the quarterbacks that are still here on your roster, right? And like, wow, boy, they didn't think we were good enough. So they went through all this trouble to try and fight the NCAA just to find somebody else. But the toughest part, I think, is just finding a willing dance partner on the other side. Like, who's the quarterback that's gonna do it? Who's the quarterback that's gonna do it? You would have to find somebody that is willing enough to take on the firestorm that would come with it, that's also good enough to be demonstrably better than Will Hammond. Which, yeah, I mean, there are certainly quarterbacks that that are more proven that they're demonstrably better than Will Hammond, but the odds of finding that combo, someone that is up the ladder enough that would be willing to do that and go through all this. You know, I mean, we saw like Damon Williams at Washington, LSU tampers him into the portal. He had already signed with Washington for the year. He was in and then out, and then backed out of it. And there was a lot of pressure that came, right? I mean, it would be that probably times two, times three if you're if you're gonna try and do that right now. So I don't think this is really like a feasible solution, even for the most aggressive of the most aggressive right now. This is, however, if it were going to happen, it would be this type of situation. You either like season-ending injury or you know, potentially career-ending scandal. What I think is more likely, this comes from a Ross Dellinger's story that he wrote uh this week about everything happening with Soresby in Texas Tech. Uh, he wrote, quote, the next step in the process is Texas Tech filing for reinstatement of Soresby's eligibility. Okay, that's right. So Dellinger is writing here about this the scenario that is expected for most that the NCAA will investigate this and then rule, hey, Brendan Soresby permanently ineligible because he bet on a game that his team was playing in. So Ross Dellinger says then the next step in the process is Texas Tech filing for reinstatement of Soresby's eligibility, or at least a portion of it. And then Dellinger says a denial of that from the NCAA is certain to spark a legal challenge from Soresby in a case that may even be backed by Texas Tech. So Dellinger's kind of laying out like what the expectation is here. And again, this is a really well-connected guy. He's saying the expectation is yeah, he'll get ruled ineligible, and then Soresby and Texas Tech will file for reinstatement. And the NCAA is probably going to not deny that. And at that point, Soresby would be like, all right, well, fine, we'll see you in court. And Texas Tech may even back that up. So I don't I don't know, man. I the timing on this, the timeline on this, I'm like, I get why Texas Tech would want to be involved. I suppose that there's a you know, what do you have to lose element at play here? Like, you know, Soresby's probably not going to play anyway. You might as well fight and try if you think he's going to be that much of a difference maker, even for a part of your season if he gets some of his eligibility back. But my head is spinning trying to think of how all that would be adjudicated in time for the season to start or most of the season to be here, right? Like, feels like you'd be in the middle of the season by the time anyone could actually get to this. Like in the legal system, it just feels to me like a long shot that any of that would happen. It all seems kind of like a mess. But I do think that that is a more likely scenario than trying the ghost transfer thing. This would be a little more like, hey, we'll give it a shot. If it works out, it works out. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Right? If it doesn't, if they don't get to it in time, well, you know, fine. Uh that's the road this was all going down anyway, where we're gonna have to rely on Hammond or Francis or whoever. But uh both scenarios are really intriguing. Both scenarios are fairly messy, and both scenarios mean that this is not gonna be worked out fully anytime soon. Another reason it's not gonna be worked out fully anytime soon is because we still don't know what the consequences will be for Cincinnati, where the reporting right now suggests that Cincinnati knew about Brendan Soresby gambling a whole bunch before last season, but it seems that coming from the Cincinnati side of things, their story is they knew he was betting on things. They did not know it was the things that were specifically outlawed because you can bet on certain events, but you can't bet on professional sports that the NCAA has championships in. So, you know, there's a football championship, there's a basketball championship, there's a baseball championship, so you can't bet on pro basketball, football, or baseball. That type of thing, right? Seems like we're getting down in the weeds on semantics with all of that. You gotta admit, all this does seem uh it's feels a little bit fishy, the timing on all this for Cincinnati. Uh, did the do the Bearcats actually turn them in? Uh, click here to find out. That's for those who are watching the uh clipped version, those of you hanging out live, just keep hanging out. I appreciate uh I appreciate all of you who are here. Once again, like and subscribe. That is totally free. I appreciate everybody who does that. It is very, very helpful. Absolutely love these uh work gold one, but I love these. Um I love these. I I was gonna say Stanley. It's not Stanley, it's Arctic. Uh shout out to Arctic, but those like style of cups. Keep everything nice and cold. Love them. Love them, love them. Can't go back without them now. Uh who's with me? Okay, so I want to talk Big 12 private equity. I've got more, a little bit more on like Cincy and Soresby and tech and everything that's going on. Um and then Jerome Tang back to Baylor, I think is wildly, wildly fascinating. I have some thoughts on that. Let me pop in and get us get to a super chat real quick, though. Uh, two super chats. All right, I missed the first one. Sorry. Uh Big 12 Little 12. I see. Okay, so Big 12 Little 12 is talking private equity. I'm going to uh get to that in just a moment. Big 12 Little 12, because it leads in perfectly to my next topic. Let's talk right now with uh Erwin Bakwarin. Erwin Bakwarin, thank you for being here. Appreciate you, my friend. How do you think the locker room turns out if Sorsby comes back? Well, it it doesn't seem like the I tech fans maybe I'm missing something here, but I Sorsby seems like a pretty well-liked guy. In fact, I read in Ross Dellinger's story, he made it a point to say, uh, how did he phrase it? He said that a ironically, one of the reasons that Texas Tech chose Brendan Soresby over Sam Levitt was off-the-field stuff, like how they felt about him off the field, which I take to be as a locker room guy, right? So it seemed like a part of the reasoning there was like, hey, we think this guy will be better for the locker room. I don't I don't think that tech would really have too much of a locker room issue. I guess if the thought is, well, now we've committed the we've committed the season to Will Hammond, we're gonna push him to get back now instead of saying, hey, you can take a red shirt year, and then you do that, and then suddenly two weeks in Sorsby's back because of some legal challenge. Maybe, maybe you could have a bit of a splintered locker room at that point. Like I can understand that. Um I I guess then it would all come down to how much of an appetite do you have for the fight, and how much of a difference do you think Brendan Soresby makes versus whatever the upside play on Will Hammond is. I think that's the calculation you would be doing there. But tech, I will say this tech overall seems like a very well-run, well-oiled machine right now. And it's not just people get it twisted all the time, or they think it's just this money. You look, you can throw money. We're about to talk about drum tang later. You can throw money at a roster and have it be a total disaster if your organization is not in good shape. That's not been the case at Texas Tech. It's it's a well-oiled machine there. I think they've got a good culture. I would expect that they could they could handle it pretty well if they want to go down that road. All right. Big 12 Little 12. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your support. Big 12 Little Twelve says, Is it me or does the Big 12's new uh private capital deal seem like a payday loan since 30 million per school still doesn't close the competitive gap? Uh, do you think other schools may consider massive private equity deals like Utah? Uh, I think this is a this is a good point because one of the points I've been making on this is like the headline is so not really like salacious, but it's a very sexy headline. Like, oh man, like private capital and these private equity companies are linking up with the Big 12. It's really not that much money. Like it's really not that much money uh compared to what the the Utah deal is. We're talking 500 million versus 30 million. It's a big, big difference. Um, I think what a lot of this is, the Big 12 is really trying to sell it as a three-pronged partnership. Like we are the the Big 12 and the partners here claim that they've already created revenue streams that are going to generate$130 million of revenue over the next five years. So a lot of it's about like a business partnership. Part of it's about the Big 12 itself, the League Office getting$12.5 million to invest into other revenue streams, trying to build other revenue streams. And then it's like, oh yeah, you can also, if the schools want to, they can take some money too. So it feels like the Big 12's perspective is almost more not that that's like a total afterthought, but it's just a piece of the puzzle. So I think that's some of it. That would that would be the way I would answer that, that that's some of the reason behind it. It's not the$30 million per school, I don't think is like the full, I don't think that's like the main dish of this. That's not the main function. Uh, I'll put it that way. So Big 12, little 12, that's uh that's where I'm at on that. But get ready. I've got much more where that's coming from, okay? Because it's official. The Big 12 took the plunge on private capital. How much debt are the schools taking on? Did they give up an ownership stake? Will this all come crashing down like everybody thinks when they see these headlines? I'll explain it all in this video for you, okay? So this was first reported back in December. That's part one of this. I I think most people knew this was coming. You go back like a couple years, there was first talk of the Big 12 and private equity, and seemed like the appetite wasn't there from the university presidents. But then in December, it got mentioned like, hey, this is something that could really happen. It would be private capital, not equity. And uh it's it was interesting that yes, even though this was tweaked a little bit that the Big 12 had seemingly come around to the point where it's now leaking out, which told me, yeah, it's probably gonna happen at some point. Like barring a crazy change, this seems like it is probably going to happen. Here are some of the details on this. Uh, we'll get to the per school piece of it in a moment where the schools can basically take out a loan uh because of the two partners. But uh the league office is going to get$12.5 million. They can also take$12.5 million more next year if they want it. That option is there, and the league says it will invest that money into other revenue generating outlets. So they're trying to take a little money up front to create more money. Takes money to make money, so they say. That's what the Big 12 is trying to do with the League Office. Uh there's no ownership stake involved here. I just teased that question, right? This is that's an important thing to know. Not private equity. You're not giving up like a tenth of the conference, you don't give up any voting rights, none of that stuff. None of that, none of that, none of that. None of that at all. And the Big 12 views this as a real partnership, like a media partnership. Well, not a media partner, a revenue generating partnership with in part Redbird and in part Weatherford. It's Redbird and Weatherford. They're the two companies here: Weatherford, Drew Weatherford, former Florida State quarterback, um, you know, his private equity place. And the that there's a lot that could happen business wise, and a lot that already has happened. Redbird claims, again, to have already generated 130 million for the Big 12 over the next five years with things like the PayPal sponsorship, the players era tournament. Um, these are the types of things they're doing to try and make the conference. Conference, more money. But there's also a part where the Big 12 thinks this could help out with TV negotiations, possibly, because Redbird has Paramount in its portfolio. Paramount owns CBS, and Paramount is about to own TNT. So those are other options for the next Big 12 TV deal. So you get a bit of an in there. I think there are a lot of ancillary business benefits to this. So that's a huge part of what the Big 12 is trying to do, even though, again, the part people seem to care about more and the part that is sexier is how much money are the schools taking? What rate are they getting that money at? How much are they going to have to pay it back? Look, most of this, even though I'm not, I'm like anybody, I'm not thrilled about the private equity companies coming in no matter how it is with just a bunch of upfront capital money or whatever the involvement is. It's crazy that we're here where that needs to happen. I don't know, man. A lot of this seems pretty smart. Like find different ways to generate revenue. You you gotta be exercising every single one of them that you can right now because so much revenue is needed. This is why Cody Campbell's on the tirade to try and save college sports with the Sports Broadcasting Act. Make a bunch more money for everybody else you can pay for all the expenses that you have. Um, so I I I think I think this is good. The Big 12 has also tried to sell that this is showing a unified front that everybody is together because they could agree on this. I don't know, you know, I roll my eyes a bit at that because I'm like, look, you're as unified as you can possibly be until the Big Ten or the SEC comes after somebody, and then, you know, anybody in the conference would jump at that. So, you know, okay, great. You're unified enough to make this deal. I'm glad that they did. But what are the schools actually taking on here? How many of the schools are going to take this money? How much money? What's the rate that they're getting it at? That's coming in just a sec. Please do subscribe to the channel. I am pushing toward 32K subscribers, but ultimately trying to hit that goal of 35K helps a lot if you subscribe. Ton of you watch, but don't subscribe. It is a really big help if you could do that. So, 50-50 venture between Redbird and Weatherford Capital. As I mentioned, the schools have the option to take up to$30 million apiece. That's at a near 10% interest rate, is the rate that they are getting that at. Up to$30 million. Now, what's very interesting about this is that all the reporting from Yahoo to the Athletic has suggested that basically two to six Big 12 schools are expected to take the money. Two to six out of 16. So we're talking about just a chunk of the conference doing this, not a majority of the league wanting to do this. Now, if you start going down the line and doing the math on this, I mean, like Utah already has its own$500 million private equity deal. They're probably not going to want to do this, right? They've they've got it taken care of. Kansas, I would imagine, is not going to want to do this. They've they got the$300 million from David Booth in that big donation last August. BYU has literally already said they won't. Like Brian Santiago, the athletic director a couple of weeks ago was going on podcasts saying, like, hey, I've been saying in meetings, like, we're not doing any of this. BYU, we don't need that. We're not doing that. And then I think to, I think I maybe skipped on answering this part of the question a moment ago from Big 12 Little 12. Yeah, I think other Big 12 schools are looking into things like this, whether it's more like the Utah partnership or it's more like the David Booth, Kansas thing, getting some big donors to give a ton of money and maybe then become like investors that get a cut. Like there are creative ways you can do this. I think there are other Big 12 schools looking into that. And that that may be a part of why it's only going to be two to six schools that that wind up taking part in this. I would just say at the end of the day, okay, there are two thoughts here. One, people who are really upset about it just kind of have to get over it because of the reality of the situation. But also, I don't think it's nearly as big of a deal as the headline suggests. I think the headline talks more than the substance on this, because not that many schools are going to do it. There's no ownership being given up in the conference. It's only$30 million, which is paltry when you hold it up against$500 million for Utah. You know, I guess I would I would say that. I think is just a much more fascinating setup with how it's working, and it's way more money. Like way more money. Um, and I think you're going to see more of those individual type deals come out at some point for other Big 12 schools and other schools across the country, too, right? And this may just be something that gets repeated by the Big Ten and the SEC anyway, and so you're not really making up that much ground. And the Big Ten already had its um UC investments flirtation that didn't work out because of some resistance, but they were already going down that road. So to me, it's just not really that big of a deal. It's a sign of the times, it's uh it's a necessary evil, is really the way I would phrase it right now. If you want to compete, you gotta you gotta come up with the money to fund your roster for the next five to seven years. And the the cost keeps going up. Yesterday's price is not today's price, cost keeps going up. Uh, Evan Miyakawa had the report that basketball rosters was basically up like 65% this year to get the elite players in the transfer portal. Like it's it's not going back down. And if you don't have the money right now to compete, you're gonna get left behind. So it's either take some risk, take on some risk with the way you're obtaining your money right now and give yourself a chance, or bow out right now, say, Well, we're not gonna do this, we can't do this, and then you're gonna get left behind and won't be in major college athletics in five to ten years, potentially. Like, that's the choice. Not a great choice. Uh, I'm I'm with you. It's it's wild that we're here making those decisions, but that is, I think, the reality of where things are at. Uh, if you are wondering, how does this$500 million deal work for Utah? You said private equity, not private capital. Like, what are the differences there? Click here to find out how it works. That's for everybody watching the clipped version. Uh, those of you who are hanging out here on the live stream, don't worry about it. We're gonna we're gonna keep rolling here. Talk a little a little bit more, a little bit more about Brendan Soresby and where the Big 12 is at, but zooming out for a bird's eye view here, because I'm frustrated. I gotta be honest. I'm a bit frustrated by by this development. And I think if you're if you're a Big 12 fan, if you are wanting the best for the league, you probably should be too. You probably should be too by what's going on right now. Please do like and subscribe. That is very, very helpful. Uh earnest when I say it helps a lot if you subscribe. If you're somebody that watches the channel, uh, you can hit me up on Venmo at John-Kurtz-4 with a super chat if you're not watching live, and I'll kick off the next show with your question or comment. Uh, if you want to submit a super chat and you're here right now, just click the dollar sign below the chat box. Appreciate everybody who does that. It will guarantee that your question or comment makes it on the show here tonight and is a great way to support. And I would also encourage you to subscribe to the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter, ofbnews.com. We have 6,300 Big 12 fan subscribers, and uh, I appreciate all the guys who do subscribe. Why is the Big 12 self-destructing right before our very eyes? The league has enough problems to deal with from the outside world, but man, it's been an offseason full of self-inflicted wounds. How much damage has been done? Can the Big 12 recover from this this year? Is it going to cost the Big 12 in the college football playoff? I've got the answers coming up in this video. Plus, I will offer one silver lining that can save the league in all of this. All right. So look, man, we all know where the Big 12 was at at the end of the college football playoff last year. We all know what happened to Texas Tech losing 23 to nothing. We remember the Dan Walkin article about, hey, can the Big 12 even call itself a power conference? That was the general vibe after that. Everybody had completely forgotten about Arizona State's performance the year before, where they absolutely should have won that game against Texas that went into double overtime in the Peach Bowl. Uh, how quickly they forget. How quickly they forget about TCU Michigan, right? I mean, all it's it all went crashing burning down with Texas Tech and Barron Morton not being able to do anything on offense last year. Then you get the coaching carousel. And it wasn't all bad. BYU kept Kalani Sataki, Arizona State kept Kenny Dillingham away from the grubby hands of Penn State and Michigan, but you guys know where this is going. After the college football playoff, loss from Texas Tech, three like staple Big 12 coaches that were always on every single top 25 list that you found of the best coaches in America. Maybe even if you're going to a top 10 or top 15, you would find a lot of these guys on there. Chris Kleiman, retired. Kyle Whittingham, nudged out, winds up at Michigan, takes seven coaches and five players with him. Okay. He lost that rock of the Big 12 coaching community. Matt Campbell leaves Iowa State for Penn State. That was a pretty tough blow. Iowa State all of a sudden has 55 players in the portal. They lose basically the entire roster. And then, you know, I mean Jay Hill left uh for Kyle Whittingham's staff too. We'll see how BYU is going to uh respond to that. I just think about that. Like it's been tumultuous. Ever since I was at the Big 12 championship game in Dallas, since leaving that day from Texas Tech beating BYU. All that happened, man. Tech gets rocked. Whittingham to Michigan steals a bunch of coaches away, players on his way out the door. Takes a bunch of coaches, players on his way out the door. Matt Campbell to Penn State, Chris Kleiman retires. Been a lot that's changed in the last couple of years in this league, man. In addition to the coaching stuff this year that I mentioned, you've also like Lance Leipold was always on a bunch of those lists too. And this is something the Big 12 could really hang its hat on. Having like the best coaches in the country, the way everybody was always coming after him. And now like Lance Leipold's trending down, Kleinman retired, Campbell gone, Whittingham gone. I know Kenny, Kenny Dillingham, Willie Fritz, they're rising. That's good. But it's like these are the outside elements, things that the Big 12 has not had as much control over that are working against it. So everything that's in your control, man, you got to make sure that you're doing well. And there have just been some self-inflicted wounds here. Okay. The self-inflicted wounds are getting in the way for the conference. Please do subscribe, by the way. It helps me a lot. Pushing to 32k subs. We're almost there. It became clear after last year and then this offseason that the Big 12 was starting to change, right? And I think this was for the better. Long the discussion around the Big 12 had been conference where anybody can beat anybody. It's zany, it's goofy, it's fun. Then it was like after last year, like, oh, wait, hold up. The way this is taking shape, Texas Tech and then BYU, they look like they could be top two teams in this league, like one, two for a while, man. They could really hold this thing down. And maybe that's a good thing. If you have two programs that are consistently in the national spotlight like that every year, that can be better. What why is the ACC? Why is perception that the ACC is better than the Big 12? Because they have Florida State and Clemson and Miami. They have these big brands. Well, if Texas Tech and BYU develop into that, that can be a good thing for the league. Clearly, the two most well-resourced programs in the league. They were the best two teams last year. And if we're going over the last two years, BYU's resume obviously extends over that time span. So when it just starts to look like these guys are really separating, they're going to run away with it again. This is Big 12 starting to get some power up at the top. Both teams, both teams this offseason have a major scandal that cost them a star player. And this is my frustration with this, man. You talk about self-inflicted wounds. I'm not saying that like Texas Tech, this is not me being like, oh, do more digging and figure out about Brendan Sorsby's 2022 gambling before you bring him on. It's not that, but it's just like this this is not anything the SEC or Big Ten did, right? This is this has nothing to do with that. You all know Brendan Soresby's story by now, right? Checking into a gambling uh facility for gambling uh issues that he's having. Probably not going to play for tech. He may even be taking down another Big 12 school in Cincinnati if they're gonna get in trouble for knowing about some of this before he played last year. Monster, monster self-inflicted wound. I started this whole thing by saying, hey, the Big 12 started taking a bunch of crap for losing 23 to nothing. They tech needed a quarterback and they found one, and now he's gone. Massive, massive self-inflicted wound. Uh tech season probably is going to change somewhat because of this. It'll put more pressure on the defense to be more like last year when the thinking beforehand, I at least my opinion was tech would be better on offense, probably take a step back on defense from just being historically good last year. It's also going to put more pressure on Will Hammond to speed up recovery from an injury and just grow up from where he was last year. I mean, just I frankly, I think just more consistency. Needs to be a more consistent football player. And look, this wasn't even this was not the first major scandal of the offseason, right? I mean, Parker Kingston has been buried in some ways, that story, because no one's talking about that anymore. They're talking about Brendan Sorsby. And Parker Kingston plays for BYU. So again, we're back to these two flag tent pole, tent pole programs, tent pole programs that you had for the Big 12. It it both of them have lost a key player this offseason due to a scandal, right? Now, this was a horrible story with Parker Kingston, but charged with rape, kicked out of school, off the team at BYU. I mean, it's a horrible, horrible story. We're going to talk about the football side here right now. Uh, it's look, losing a receiver is not as impactful as losing a quarterback, full stop, but Parker Kingston was a stud, and BYU had already lost its top two pass catchers outside of Kingston. So now it's the top three pass catchers are gone. And that's speaking of putting pressure, that changes the dynamics of the situation at BYU. More pressure on Jojo Phillips, more pressure on Kyle Casper, more pressure on the tight ends, uh, some of the freshman receivers who who may be playing here. I mean, that's tough, man. Parker Kingston was a dude. He was a dude on special teams, too, in addition to what he did as uh as a receiver. So you've had the it just it's a thought I had the other day driving around. I was like, man, that's a bummer for the Big 12. Like it's gonna for everybody else, hey, it does make if you want your team to win the league, if you're a Houston fan, like, yeah, it feels way more wide open and exciting, and that's great. And maybe we'll get to my silver lining. My silver lining is that maybe that's maybe that's what's going to happen. Maybe this opens the door for another 2024 Arizona State, where Houston is that team and they go to the playoff and they catch up to everybody, jump up and surprise everybody, and they go toe-to-toe with somebody in the playoff, and no longer you have this 23-0 bad taste in your mouth. Maybe Arizona State really is that program. They're one of these tenth pole programs, and last year was just a freak quarterback injury situation, plus Jordan Tyson dealing with injuries that kept that team from being what it should have been. And had Sam Levitt stayed healthy the entire season, it's another 10 or 11 win year for Kenny Dillingham in Arizona, Arizona State, and that's really the program we should be paying attention to. And they'll be right back. They'll be the one that this time next year will be saying, hey, that's the program that you're leaning on. All these things could happen. That's your silver lining to all of this, right? If you go back to the best performances that this league has had in the college football playoff, it's been 2022 TCU and 2024 Arizona State, neither of which were supposed to be great going into the season. You know, I mean, TCU Chandler Morris started that 2022 season at quarterback, remember? It wasn't even Max Duggan wasn't even supposed to be the guy. They kind of passed on him after 2021. He goes off, has a near Heisman type of season, and they beat Michigan in the college football playoff. 2024, Arizona State picked last in the Big 12. Suddenly they're there with a fourth and 13 stop away from beating Texas in the Peach Bowl in the college football playoffs. So maybe that is coming. Maybe that's what this league needs, or maybe Arizona State is the real program. Is it like Oklahoma State, Houston, Arizona? One of those programs is going to make a big jump this year, and we'll be sitting here talking about this much differently a year from now. Maybe so. Maybe so. But it doesn't change the fact that you certainly wouldn't, you don't you don't want to see these self-inflicted wounds, like things happening like this to the two best programs in the league. Hopefully, though, I left you with a little bit of hope uh by the end of that. Okay. Now, I mentioned the Brendan Soresby thing could take down both Texas Tech and Cincinnati. Is Cincinnati actually gonna get taken down? Click here to find out. That's for those watching the uh the clipped version of the show. Those of you that are hanging out live, I appreciate you being here. Um oh boy. All right. Well, Tom, Tom, you seem to be you seem to be very angry here, my friend. And now we're getting some fighting back in the chat. Can we can we chill out? Can we chill out tonight? Let's uh let's chill out. Well, like Tom, let's let's go take a little bit of a break here. That's okay. That's okay. I was hoping for chill vibes tonight. I'm not sure what set things off there, but you know, let's let's get back, let's reset. Ron, I appreciate you. It's not feeding anybody, it's just observing what was going on in the chat. I don't want it to be uh a negative space here. Uh let's see, man. I'm I got I got one more topic for you. It's Jerome Tang and Baylor. We are gonna talk a little bit of uh of hoops to end the show here tonight. Gotta stretch out a minute, man. I'm sore. I've been uh I've been working lately. You guys, you guys into DIY projects? I feel like we're in like DIY project mode, like spring cleaning. I I put together a fence, like a a wall of the fence in my backyard over the last couple of weeks. It has been quite the task uh for your boy here, but I'm very proud of it. But it also has man, you ever used a two-man auger? Things things pretty wild. It uh it's left me, it's left me a little bit sore. So uh please please forgive me there, chat. If I'm moving a little weird on the on the show here tonight. Uh okay. Please do like and subscribe. It definitely, definitely helps. Uh Jerome Tang is back at Baylor. The old gang is back together in Waco at Baylor. Jerome Tang has been hired by the Baylor Bears. My fear for Baylor fans here is that this is the wrong route for Baylor to be going with his program right now. We'll talk about it. I know that I'm biased. Uh, K-State fans, I want to talk to you too. How should you feel about this? And will there be hostility in Bramlage Coliseum next year if uh if Jerome Tang does play in Bramledge Coliseum next year? Okay, so most people know the deal by now. Jerome Tang got fired. He got fired for cause, which that that piece is still up in the air. How much K-State is going to have to pay him? They're still locked up in a legal battle over what he's going to have to be paid for. Uh, what he's gonna have to be paid for being fired.$18.7 million was the buyout after being fired for cause. K-State, of course, was pinning it on the comments after the Cincinnati game. I think there's really like more stuff behind the scenes going on there. But I figured this would end in a settlement the whole time. Uh, Tom Mars, who is Jerome Tang's pretty high-profile attorney and all this. Uh, he's the one that like threatened a lawsuit. And then the latest update on this, by the way, is the Manhattan Mercury says Tang's lawyer sent K-State a draft of a lawsuit over all of this. Now, I'm no legal expert. Talking to some people seem like there was some question, like, well, why show your cards beforehand if you're not thinking this is going to end in a settlement? I still would guess that that's probably what's what's going to happen. But regardless, K-State's moved on. Casey Alexander's already got his whole roster set. Um Jerome Tang's now back at Baylor. So he clearly has moved on. No secret that this was something that could happen, right? Obviously, he spent a ton of time at Baylor. He's best buds with Scott Drew. They are very, very tight. My only thought on like maybe this won't happen is just because Ron Sanchez is now at Baylor, who already had the title of associate head coach, but it it sounds like that's all being worked out because Matt Norlander uh from CBS Sports tweeted this about it uh that both Jerome Tang and Ron Sanchez will be associate head coaches. Uh contracts still being ironed out. So you're just gonna make you're just gonna make both guys, both guys the associate head coach there. Uh, I've got plenty of thoughts on this. I, if I were a Baylor fan, I probably would feel differently because I have so much good associated with the Tang Drew era, right? Things were absolutely rolling when he left. They're coming off the national championship. Like I understand you're gonna have a totally different perspective than me. Last time I saw Jerome Tang, the fans were wearing paper bags on their heads in the arena. So we're coming from totally different perspectives on this, but I'm not sure that this is exactly what Baylor needs. Please do subscribe to the channel. It helps a lot. Trying to get over the hump of 32k subscribers, but then we're pushing to 35 people. So please do subscribe if you have not. It really does help. Um let's talk K-State fans for a moment, though. If Jerome Tangan, we don't know whether or not Baylor will be playing inside Bramlage for the upcoming season. If you were to come back, though, I think the the vibe of that and how K-State fans should feel about it is contingent on two things. One, how well is K-State playing under Casey Alexander? And two, what happens with this settlement slash lawsuit, right? And to me, the more important thing is how well is K-State playing under Casey Alexander? That will tell a lot of this. Because I mean, look, my it's not my money that's going to the buyout. There's this element of like just water under the bridge, whatever. Just I just move on. Maybe more so than water under the bridge, the appropriate way to say it is like, let's all just move on. Uh, that is definitely where I tend to lean on this. But if K-State is struggling in year one under Casey Alexander and then Jerome Tang comes in, I think rightfully so, there will be a perception of like, man, this is a mess that you made. Like Casey Alexander did not have nearly as much to spend on a roster this year when players were more expensive because of all the money that Tang blew on horrible seasons in the last couple of years. So that put K-State in a hole. The donors, understandably so, a little gun shy about just forking over a ton of money to basketball again after that just happened. So Casey Alexander's got to kind of prove himself without that. And I look, K-State missed on the three high-profile Belmont guys uh who went to Tennessee, Nebraska, and Duke. That's largely financial. I mean, that's largely financial. So there will there will be a perception that if K-State is struggling, like, hey, this is all about this is all about the money pit that K-State was in, the money problem, and that is your fault, man. So I think there would be more hostility in that type of a vibe if it's a rough year one for Casey Alexander or year one and year two, whenever Jerome Tang's in there, whatever. Um, it will be also, though, further complicated if it comes out that like K-State has to pay the full buyout or K-State has to pay close to it. I don't know if they settle, if we'll ever get the number. I don't know how that will go, but if there's a perception there that K-State still had to pay like a ton of money there, that also could drive some of that. And I'm I'm not saying that's right or wrong based on what the contract was, but I think that also would amp up uh some of the frustration there. So I think that's that's that will determine what the vibe would be for that. It's a weird one, man, because there was such a love affair for a while with Tang, extending even into the NIT season in year two in that offseason, and you know, because there was such a war with him and the university president over the Naquan Tomlin thing. Like it it was tumultuous, man. It was that was a hot and heavy, or you know, that was a love-hate relationship big time. So how do you feel after something like that when you see the X rolling back in? I I don't know. I don't know. But as far as Baylor goes, okay, this this would be my my thought to Baylor fans on this. Like, I get it. Again, wonderful times with this man in your program, winning a national championship, and not just that, all the success that happened with Drew and Tang. I get it, man. I understand. Um, I'm looking at it right now like this is 2026 and not 2020. Totally different era of college basketball than it was then. It's a totally different era than the last time Jerome Tang was on the bench at Baylor. And it seems to me like Baylor and K-State were sort of on parallel paths of falling further and further downward. And it seems like Scott Drew had some of the same issues of you know, spending a lot of money and not really spending it wisely, not being great with roster construction with the money that was given. And so for the Baylor program, my fear would be that this is getting the old band back together at a time when you need fresh new blood and a new direction. And that doesn't mean it has to be like Scott, obviously, you're not going to fire Scott Drew as the head coach, but just get some some new fresh blood into the building. Honestly, I think about it in sort of the same way Chiefs fans might get mad at me for this, but the Eric Bienemy hire, you know, bringing him back as uh the offensive coordinator of the Chiefs. I was sort of like, I don't, I don't know, man. Seems like I'd prefer to just go a different direction with some new fresh blood. Same thing here. Um, especially because that these are two guys that struggled with the same sort of thing. Now, maybe it's just maybe Jerome Tang is just a phenomenal assistant and not cut out to be a head coach, and he'll go right back to being a phenomenal assistant, and everything will be great and fine at Baylor. I'm I'm skeptical of that. I'll be honest, I'm skeptical of that. And I also, Baylor fans, I will totally acknowledge here. I will completely acknowledge that my bias is totally out there. Obviously, as a K-State fan, the last thing I saw was him really struggling, things going downhill, imploding, spending a lot of money with very little results. Just a tough situation the last few years. Your last impression of him is much different when he was at your school. So I may be just too negatively coded because of what I last experienced with him there in the program. Uh totally fair, and I will admit that, and maybe I'll be completely wrong. I I wish no ill will to Jerome Tang. I certainly wish no ill will to the Baylor program. Look, I'm a big Scott, I've loved Scott Drew for a long time. I if you ever listen to my radio show in my Manhattan radio days, people used to hate me because I was such a Scott Drew stand back in those days when people didn't like him as much. Um, so I wish no ill will, but that is my thought on it. It feels like Baylor's trending in the wrong direction and trying to go, you know, just turn back the clock to fix it instead of adapting. That's probably, you know, if I could have just started with that, that would have been a much better way to distill it and say it. Uh, if you're looking to get caught up on the details of the Tang lawsuit, what happened at the time and where all that was, click here to find out. All right, that's for uh everybody watching the clipped version. Those of you hanging out live, don't you worry about it. Let's uh let's all right. I'm always here for the wit from Pacific Northwest Ute. We've got some of that coming. Pacific Northwest Ute. Uh, it's a great day for wannabe Big 12 contenders. To paraphrase Demi Lovato, Soresby, not Soresby. Oh, this is making me feel old, Pacific Northwest Ute. This is making me feel old. I don't, I mean, I know who Demi Lovato is. I actually I really love music too, but I don't. What is the Demi Lovato reference that I'm missing here on this one? Uh and wannabe Big 12 contenders. Is that me? Are you are you lumping Utah, your Utes in there as wannabe Big 12 contenders? You know, people have asked me how I feel about like what this does to Tech's chances to win the league. Ironically, some of the articles immediately went to, hey, Brendan Sorsby is popped for a gambling scandal. And now here are the odds from FanDuel for Texas Tech to win the Big 12 and how that's changed, right? There's so much I could go on and on and on about that, about the culture and gambling and you know, all that. It is what it is. We are where we are. But my thought on Texas Tech is that they have gone from the overwhelming favorite to win the conference to um one of the contenders. They are simply one of the contenders right now. Of which, to me, there are three at the top: Houston, Texas Tech, BYU. And then you've got a group of like five underneath that, that's maybe another step behind that. So that's how that's how I feel about Texas Tech. They have gone from the slam dunk, overwhelming favorite, maybe the most likely to win a conference in the country, to win a power conference anyway, to now like they're just fighting it out with the other favorites. They're fighting it out with the other main favorites. Um okay, Pacific Northwest Ute does say Utah is just a wannabe Big 12 contender with a new coach. Okay. Sorry, not sorry. I'll have to look it up. Sorry, not sorry. I'm sorry. I I am sorry, okay. I am genuinely sorry, Pacific Northwest Ute, that I screwed up what would be a great reference there if I were cool enough to know that music. All right. Next time, Pacific Northwest Youth, if you want to make sure that I get the joke, make sure it's a rock band from the 90s uh or a pop punk andor emo band from the early to mid-2000s. If you do that, I promise you I will get the reference. Promise. Uh thank you guys for hanging out tonight. Please do like the video, subscribe to the channel. Oh, Alan's poking in here. Alan's poking in here. What's up, Alan? Alan says, uh, John, great to hear that you spoke at the uh the KU journalism school. Uh I went to J School because it was closest to the wheel, and the cheerleaders went there. Uh that's funny, Alan. That's funny. I appreciate you, man. That's yeah, no, it was cool. It was fun. Uh and the uh yeah, I was just emailing back and forth with someone about that experience earlier today. So I am happy to any Big 12 school that would like me to come speak to uh to the students. I'm happy to do it. I am happy to do it. Alan, thank you for your support of the channel as always. Uh it was it was great to be there. And hey, sometime we're gonna have to meet up before uh a KUK state game. But I appreciate you as always, my friend. Okay. Um thank you all for being here. Hope that you enjoy the rest of your week. I will um plan on doing a show on on Sunday. Keep you up to date if there are more breaking news events that happen. Hopefully no more scandals, hopefully no more key players dropping in the Big 12. But if it happens, uh, you know you get some content here. You can also, if you want to listen to the show on Apple, Spotify, um, I don't promo that enough, but you can also go find that there. Make sure you're subscribed to the Open for Business Big Twelve newsletter at OFBnews.com. That's OFBnews.com, or click the link in the description of this video. That's what I got for you tonight, folks. Thank you for listening to the Open for Business Big Twelve podcast, and I will talk to you very soon.