First up, Alabama’s baseball team, long a sport I’ve generally ignored, is on a historic run. Our very own Roger has been covering them with an undying tenacity for years, so go check out his article following yesterday’s win if you haven’t yet.
Words can’t describe how special this is personally. As someone that has been very involved with this baseball program for over two decades this is so gratifying. Rob Vaughn came to Tuscaloosa with a plan ( dare I say a process ?) and things have fallen into
place as he planned. The Tide battled multiple season ending injuries to players that were expected to be big contributors this year. Along with that there were the normal bumps and bruises-and concussions and broken fingers- that teams battle during the year. One thing the team has is an intact starting rotation that never missed a start. Tyler Fay, Adams, and Myles Upchurch, took every turn and almost always went deep in games and alway gave the Tide a chance to win. Bama was the only team in the SEC to send the same three hurlers out in the same three spots for every series of the schedule. The lineup took its lumps during their year, but are peaking at the right time. If things run right the there is no telling how far the Tide can ride those two factors in Omaha. Pitching coach Jason Jackson can not be given enough credit for the job he has done.
Roll Tide
Bama Baseball Fever, Catch It! There is still room on the bandwagon!
With that, the Tide is advancing to Omaha to take on the Oklahoma Sooners as the top 8 teams duke it out for the championship.
And hey, there’s another in-state school that made it to Omaha…. And it wasn’t Auburn. No, that belongs to little cousin Troy. Somehow, the Trojans have won 6 straight games despite losing 30 games throughout the season. First to ever make it to the CWS with that many losses. Take what you can get!
Moving to football, the Tide picked up another 2027 recruiting commit in running back Tai Phillips.
Alabama had been setting the pace for Tai Phillips throughout the spring, and after more deep conversations with running backs coach Robert Gillespie, the talented running back out of Irmo (S.C.) decided he no longer needed to wait.
Phillips canceled his official visit to Florida State and committed to Kalen DeBoer and the Crimson Tide, giving Alabama another explosive offensive piece in the 2027 class.
The rising playmaker had a massive spring and continues trending upward nationally. Many around recruiting expect Phillips to keep climbing in the rankings heading into his junior season.
“It was really just my experiences being there at Alabama,” Phillips told Rivals. “Every time I went there, I definitely felt more and more like it’s the school for me.
“Alabama is a great place, it is a great program and they have been prioritizing me for a while. At the end of the day, it was the best choice.”
Phillips is a 3-star back with a blistering 4.32 40-yard dash on his resume that Alabama offered a scholarship to a year ago when he attended a camp in Tuscaloosa and the staff has been recruiting him consistently since. There’s been some chatter around him for months, so it’ll be interesting to see if he’s a guy that starts climbing up the rankings in the recruiting services as they start evaluating him.
The Tide has pulled in a handful of 3-star prospects following the commitment of #1 overall player, Elijah Haven. The last two seasons, Kalen DeBoer pulled off a major run of commits in late June and into July, so it’s going to be fun to see what happens this year. While it’s not expected to be a big class due to the roster size (and the Tide having better retention of the last two recruiting classes than most programs lately), it would still make us all feel a lot better to start rounding it out with some top-100 level recruits.
But enough about Alabama. The massive bombshell news yesterday was the evolving saga around Brendan Sorsby:
Brendan Sorsby has won his most recent battle in court against the NCAA.
Judge Ken Curry of the 99th District Court of Lubbock County granted the Texas Tech quarterback a temporary injunction he was seeking in his legal battles against the NCAA on Monday, June 8, making him eligible to compete for the Red Raiders this upcoming college football season.
“I’m very grateful for the endless support I have received throughout this entire process. I am also grateful for the chance to rejoin my teammates,” Sorsby wrote in a statement on Monday. “This opportunity comes with the responsibility to remain focused on my personal growth, the ability to learn from this experience, and to be able to use my situation to help others going forward.”
Though Sorsby came out with the win on Monday, he could see some more legal hurdles. A person confirmed to USA TODAY Sports’ John Brice that the NCAA was expected to file a formal appeal of Curry’s decision to make Sorsby eligible. The NCAA did not immediately respond to a request from USA TODAY Sports for comment on its appeal decision.
There’s a lot to unpack in this one, and the internet has been ablaze with takes, opinions, and, for once, as seeming uniformity across all reaches of fanbases that this is terrible. If you’re behind on the story, essentially Sorsby has been serially betting on his own teams for years, and just transferred to TTU as, allegedly, one of the highest paid NIL deals in all of college football. Then promptly got caught on his betting and ruled ineligible. So, like everyone else in the last few years, he sued.
Essentially, this Texas judge just set a temporary injunction that won’t be resolved until after the season, meaning that Sorsby will be eligible to play until then. That definitely wasn’t a biased decision or anything.
Now, the NCAA is at least trying to appeal this. So hopefully some sort of common sense will win out here.
To add to the clown show of it all, Texas Tech mega-booster Cody Campbell issued this statement:
We’re all trying to find the guy who did this, said the man in the hot dog costume and cowboy boots.
After a Texas judge granted Brendan Sorsby an injunction to play this season (minus a self-imposed two-game suspension), eyes turned toward Texas Tech and its former offensive lineman, turned super-booster, turned would-be statesman and college sports reformer Cody Campbell. Using your billions to scoop up the best players available in the portal is one thing, but issuing your support behind an effort to turn the NCAA into the only organization in American sports to allow an athlete to bet on his own team and continue playing is another.
In a statement issued to reporters shortly after the ruling, Campbell blamed Monday’s outcome on “a broken system.”
The fallout is already making waves, and the other teams in the Big 12 are already going on record that they’re considering all just giving the cold shoulder to Texas Tech and refusing to play the Red Raiders.
Coaches, ADs ‘disgusted,’ ‘stunned’ with Brendan Sorsby ruling
TCU athletic director Mike Buddie and Kansas State AD Gene Taylor both told ESPN that there has been informal chatter in the league about schools not playing Texas Tech this year.
“We anticipate having conversations surrounding it,” Buddie told ESPN. “We’re all anticipating it, but this has not been formally discussed.”
The Big 12 athletic directors are set to have a conference call Tuesday with commissioner Brett Yormark, according to sources, and in a statement made to ESPN, Yormark confirmed meetings will occur this week. It’s unknown how much purview the league would have, as the judge’s ruling is law.
“The ramifications of today’s ruling are significant and could have broad impacts across college athletics, creating great concern amongst our membership,” Yormark told ESPN. “I’ve been consulting with our key stakeholders and have scheduled meetings with our conference ADs and executive board this week. We are also in touch with [NCAA president] Charlie Baker and anticipate the NCAA to appeal the order in the next 24-48 hours. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation.”
But the best observation of the day came from Cole Cubelic:
For years, anyone that has dared to bring up the fact that schools were providing scholarships, housing, education, professional training, and networking into an industry for the athletes has gotten shot down and roasted for even suggesting that there was a symbiotic relationship between school and athlete where both created value for each other.
Oh no, that wasn’t a thing, and we had to tear down the entire framework of the sport to maximize “earning potential.” Well, now all of a sudden it’s getting argued in a legal court finding that the athlete does, in fact, “Benefit from the elite coaching, training resources, camaraderie, and regimen that only being a member of a Division 1 college football team can provide.”
With this next case just pushing the boundaries even further, I think College Football’s lawlessness is only going to keep sinking further. We’ll hit rock bottom at some point and something will have to happen… But I fear we’re still quite a ways from that.
Anyway, happy Tuesday! I’m sure you all have lots of thoughts and opinions. Discuss in the comments, and have fun.
