Branden Sorsby breaks his silence on gambling scandal: ‘Everything can get ripped from you’

Earlier this year, former college quarterback Branden Sorsby was at the center of a high-profile gambling scandal that resulted in his suspension from college football and the NFL declining to allow him to be picked in the supplemental draft. Now, he's reflecting on the past several months.

While Sorsby released a statement in late June after the NFL declined to hold a supplemental draft, he has not spoken publicly on the scandal. However, in an upcoming four-part Paramount+ documentary focused on Texas Tech called The Program, he has broken his silence.

In the documentary, which was viewed by Justin Williams of The Athletic , Sorsby spoke out on the incident, admitting that he has "a ton of regret" about how everything happened.

"I know how quickly things can go wrong," Sorsby said, via Williams. "Everything can get ripped from you."

In the documentary, Williams says that Sorsby describes going across the Texas border to Oklahoma to legally gamble once he turned 18. He started out playing table games like blackjack, but he eventually got into sports gambling.

That continued even when he was a player at the college level, where Sorsby even bet on his own team while playing for the Indiana Hoosiers.

"I couldn't watch sporting activities without wanting to have something at stake, wanting to have some skin on the game," Sorsby said

Sorsby acknowledged that the habit didn't die once he transferred to Texas Tech, where he was one of the most coveted transfer quarterbacks in the 2026 transfer class, even though he was getting paid quite a lot of money.

"Whenever I got to Tech, same deal. Making more money than I ever made in my life, no reason to gamble. And yet I still did it," Sorsby added. "Just chasing a dopamine hit, and that's where you lose yourself. … I'm walking around the facility and nobody knows that I have a problem gambling. Once I got found out and got caught, I went to rehab to fix my problem. And here we are."

At one point, Sorsby recalled "bawling my eyes out" while on the phone with his parents and agent because he was "thinking I just threw everything I've worked for my entire life out the window."

Sorsby will not be playing football this year, but he will be eligible for the 2027 NFL Draft.