Commissioner Brett Yormark wanted a Big 12 team to separate itself from the pack, and Texas Tech has in multiple ways

When Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark read the letter from Texas attorney general Ken Paxton on Thursday, I wonder if Yormark thought back to a question he got from Mitch Harper of KSL Radio in Salt Lake City 11 months ago about what the conference needed most in football.

Paxton’s letter threatened legal action should the Big 12 attempt to place any meaningful sanctions on Texas Tech following a Lubbock County (Texas) court’s ruling that will allow Red Raiders quarterback Brendan Sorsby to play even though he bet on Indiana football while on the Hoosiers’ roster in 2022 and 2023.

“The Conference would face exposure to treble damages, including for Texas Tech’s lost football revenues, damages to its alumni contributions and damages to its recruitment, plus attorneys’ fees. The total exposure—for both the Big 12 and its members, joint and severally—will be substantially more than $200 million,” Paxton wrote. “Beyond its antitrust exposure, the Big 12 would also face liability for breach of contract and tortious interference. Any sanction that results in the cancellation, forfeiture or alteration of Texas Tech’s as-scheduled games would constitute a breach of the Big 12’s contractual obligations to Texas Tech.”

That’s a lot of words to say “Texas Tech is going to sue your ass in every possible way in every court it can find if your presidents try to enact any meaningful punishment.”

That threat brings us to Harper’s question, asked last year during Big 12 media days. It produced the most interesting response from Yormark of any question asked during the event, and Yormark’s response is even more interesting given that he now has 15 schools wanting to hammer Texas Tech in some way. Because Texas Tech has given Yormark exactly what he claimed the conference needed. But like other schools in other leagues that also changed their stars, Texas Tech has done it by pushing the envelope in ways more and less acceptable to its conference peers. The support of Sorsby falls squarely in the “less acceptable” category.

Here’s Harper’s question:

“You mentioned that you believe this is the deepest football conference in America. How critical is it, though, for your league to have one or two brands that emerge annually as playoff contenders in your viewpoint?”

That’s a nice way of saying that coming out of the 2024 season, every football team in the then-new 16-school Big 12 felt mostly the same. Judging by his answer, Yormark had been thinking about the topic a lot. 

“Critical. I like how you stated that. You know, I think parity matters and I think ultimately over time and it’s hopefully sooner than later, there’ll be a couple of our schools that will emerge,” Yormark said. “Elite schools that are always part of the conversations at the highest levels and that’s what we’re working towards. But it starts with parity and being competitive top to bottom. And I think we’re there and I think we’re the best in the country when you think about how deep we are top to bottom. But I do believe that long term you need certain schools to emerge to the top and I think we’re getting there, but great question.”

In other words, the SEC had Alabama, Georgia and sometimes LSU in the 2010s and early 2020s. Ole Miss clawed its way up in ways that have angered other programs, and the league has added Texas and Oklahoma to that upper-level mix — much to the chagrin of the Big 12. The Big Ten has Michigan and Ohio State (and now Indiana and Oregon). When Harper posed that question, the Big 12 had played one season without Oklahoma and Texas and the league had ranged from OK to pretty good. There was less distance between the best team and the worst team than in any other league, but there wasn’t a Goliath or two sitting atop the conference the way Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio State had been in their leagues. 

How Texas Tech separated

The Big 12 needed that, Yormark said.

The Big 12 got that in Texas Tech. But doing that typically requires pissing off everyone else.

People at other Big 12 schools have complained that Texas Tech is spending far more on its roster thanks to oil billionaire and former Red Raiders offensive lineman (and recent Paxton-for-Senate campaign donor) Cody Campbell. Texas Tech built a far better roster in 2025 than the rest of the league’s teams. BYU was the clear second-best team, and Texas Tech crushed the Cougars both times they met last season. Buying a good roster is exactly what Texas and Oregon and Ohio State and Notre Dame and all the other contenders are doing. It’s also exactly what the other Big 12 schools would do if they had the capability. So they grudgingly accept it.

Texas Tech’s continued support of Sorsby — one of the highest-priced transfer QBs on the market this offseason — is the push of the envelope that the other schools can’t stomach. Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt can claim all he wants that it is Sorsby and not Texas Tech who sued the NCAA, but we all know that if Texas Tech didn’t think Sorsby was worth the trouble, the Red Raiders would have wished him good luck in the supplemental draft and anointed Will Hammond QB1.

Why is Texas Tech doing this? Because it already spent a ton of money on Sorsby and doesn’t want that cost to be sunk. Also, Texas Tech coaches believe Sorsby gives the Red Raiders the edge they lacked when their high-priced defense finally broke in a 23-0 Orange Bowl loss to Oregon. Why did that defense break? The Red Raiders clearly hadn’t spent enough on the offense, and the Ducks kept stuffing Texas Tech and regaining possession.

Why is this story so big?

Texas Tech fans argue that the school is absorbing extra vitriol in the Sorsby situation because of the way the Red Raiders built the roster. That’s probably partially true. Old money tends to hate new money, and a lot of that criticism has come from fans of schools that do the same thing but have been doing it longer.

That’s not why this particular story has exploded, though. Had this happened at any power conference school*, it would have been a massive story mostly because it highlighted the inability of the NCAA to enforce even the most basic of sports rules.

*Other schools’ athletic directors have said they would not allow their team to play a player in Sorsby’s situation. That’s easy to say with no skin in the game. My guess? Most of them would allow it.

Campbell’s assertion Wednesday to Outkick host Dan Dakich that we’d make less of this if it happened at LSU is utterly laughable. It would be 100 times bigger if it happened at LSU, partially because of Lane Kiffin’s presence and partially because LSU is just a bigger brand than Texas Tech.

That’s part of the learning curve when you’re trying to break into the big time. The newbies never seem to understand that when you win more games, you get more attention — but it isn’t always the attention you wanted.

Michigan was the biggest story in college football for months in 2023 as the NCAA and Big Ten investigated signal-stealing allegations. Coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended for the final three games of the season by the conference. Connor Stalions went from low-level staffer to household name. That was a much bigger deal than this from a coverage standpoint, and Michigan and Harbaugh’s approval ratings outside the Wolverines’ fanbase landed about where Texas Tech’s approval ratings are now.

Does anyone at Michigan care about that? Of course not. Michigan won the national title.

The Red Raiders would do well to simply embrace the villain role, because nothing anyone says will change the outsiders’ view. This sort of thing only gets you mocked, ratioed and community-noted.

A message to the Texas Tech community from our leadership. pic.twitter.com/MpbXtNJakp

— Texas Tech Red Raiders (@TechAthletics) June 12, 2026

pic.twitter.com/3riz10e43n

— TCU Football (@TCUFootball) June 12, 2026

But within in the conference, Texas Tech officials should remind Yormark to remind the other members of the league that Texas Tech gave the conference exactly what Yormark said it needed.

The Red Raiders are the team that separated. Like other teams that separated in their leagues, they have done so ruthlessly. Their roster is once again the best in the league. That doesn’t mean a BYU or Arizona State can’t ultimately prevail this season, but it gives Texas Tech a massive advantage.

Meanwhile, the Red Raiders have raised their profile — even if it’s for something negative. The college football world has galvanized against them. More people will tune in now when Houston comes to Lubbock on Sept. 18 because they’ll be hoping Sorsby and the Red Raiders lose.

Hate watching is still watching.

The Big 12 bylaw that allows the other schools’ presidents to sanction a member actually gives the example of removing an offending team from conference TV broadcasts. Yormark probably should remind the Vengeful 15 that doing anything like that would remove what likely will be the conference’s biggest draw in 2026. Any penalty also would punish the Big 12 team that has assembled the roster that looks the most like the ones at the top of the leagues that compete for national titles.

If Paxton’s letter and the threat of massive damages didn’t cool the bloodlust, those facts might. The Big 12 needed a team to separate itself. The commissioner said so himself.

One has.

Whether anyone else in the league likes it or not.