🏈 2026 Heisman Odds: Should You Back Brendan Sorsby After Eligibility Ruling?

Brendan Sorsby is back in the Heisman Trophy race after the Texas Tech quarterback was granted a temporary injunction by a Texas court in his ongoing sports betting case with the NCAA - ruling him eligible to play college football for the Red Raiders in 2026.

Sorsby will be forced to sit out the first two games of the season as part of the injunction, and the NCAA could still appeal, but all signs point to the former Cincinnati transfer suiting up in September with a chance to lead Texas Tech to a national title. Is he worth backing to win the Heisman Trophy now that he's set to start behind center?

Below, I break down Sorsby's odds to win the Heisman Trophy, the latest in his eligibility status for 2026, and his realistic chances to win the award - including how I'd be playing the Sorsby market at Kalshi and other prediction market apps after Monday's news.

📊 2026 Heisman Trophy odds at prediction markets

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After Monday's ruling, Sorsby's odds to win the Heisman Trophy shot up by 4 percentage points at Kalshi - moving from a 1% long shot earlier in the week to a 5% dark horse to win the award. That means buying a share at 5 cents would return $1 in total - a 95-cent profit with a 19/1 return using American prices from our odds converter.

He's still trading well behind the favorites, Texas' Arch Manning (14%) and Notre Dame's CJ Carr (13%), but he's currently tied with Georgia's Gunner Stockton for the eighth-best college football odds to win the 2026 Heisman Trophy. We could see that number tick up even further, too, considering that Sorsby was trading as high as 15% after transferring to Texas Tech in January.

⚖️ Will Brendan Sorsby play in 2026?

At this point, it sure looks like Sorsby will play in 2026 after a district court judge in Lubbock County granted the Texas Tech star an injunction to remain eligible this season. He won't play right away, though, and it's no certainty that he plays the entire season.

Why Sorsby was ruled ineligible

On April 14, the NCAA launched an investigation into Sorsby for placing more than 9,000 bets totaling at least $90,000 during his college career, including 40 wagers of at least $850 on the Indiana football team while he was on the roster but before he played. That's a clear violation of the NCAA bylaws, and Sorsby admitted to wagering on his own team before entering a residential treatment program to manage what he called a "clinically diagnosed" gambling disorder, according to a lawsuit against the NCAA.

What the injunction changed

After entering treatment in April, Sorsby and his legal team filed for an injunction to maintain his eligibility in 2026, citing the NCAA's "deeply hypocritical" stance on gambling while arguing that barring him from play would cause irreparable harm.

That case won over Ken Curry, the district court judge in Lubbock County who ruled in favor of Sorsby and granted a preliminary injunction that will prevent the NCAA from punishing the Texas Tech quarterback for any sports gambling violations while the lawsuit is ongoing. That will likely take until after the 2026 season to fully resolve.

The NCAA has already said it "strongly disagrees" with the court's ruling and is expected to appeal, but the hurdles of the legal system mean that the star quarterback will likely suit up for the entire season beyond the two-game suspension that Sorsby's legal team proposed as part of the temporary injunction. Sorsby will also be required to seek ongoing counseling and treatment for his gambling and anxiety disorders.

When will Sorsby return?

Assuming the NCAA appeal doesn't come to fruition before the season and Sorsby remains in compliance with the court ruling, he'll return Sept. 18 when Texas Tech hosts Houston to open its Big 12 schedule. He'll sit the Red Raiders' first two games against Abilene Christian (Sept. 5) and Oregon State (Sept. 12), both of which they'll be heavily favored to win even without Sorsby behind center.

🏆 Will Sorsby win the Heisman Trophy in 2026?

If we assume that Sorsby is on the field for all but two of Texas Tech's games this season, he has a legitimate shot to win the Heisman Trophy - and his off-field troubles both complicate the narrative for voters and help shine a spotlight on him in the first place.

The case for Sorsby to win the Heisman

Above all else, Sorsby fits the quintessential profile of a Heisman winner: quarterbacks have won the award 21 of the last 26 years, and nearly all of them had their team in title contention down the stretch. Many of them went on to be first-round picks, which bodes well for Sorsby as one of the top 2027 NFL prospects after being ranked as the No. 2 transfer portal target at any position ahead of the 2026 season.

We've seen a history of long shots winning the award, too, with Indiana's Fernando Mendoza opening off the board entirely last year before bursting onto the scene. Fans love an underdog story, and while Sorsby's off-field issues have soured his profile for some potential voters, it's impossible to ignore the spotlight that will be on Sorsby despite his long odds.

And if you believe in Texas Tech's chances to win the Big 12 and make the College Football Playoff in 2026-27 - both of which are outright favored to happen across the best college football betting sites - then Sorsby is a compelling option in the Heisman market if he puts up gaudy numbers to complement a potentially undefeated season.

The case against Sorsby to win the Heisman

While a two-game suspension won't derail his chances, those counting stats against subpar competition play a huge role in boosting the end-of-season numbers for the top players in the country - and that matters when comparing resumes in December, especially with Texas Tech's schedule lacking opportunities for many quality wins.

That means Sorsby will truly have to light it up through the meat of the Red Raiders' schedule in October and November to catch up to the favorites in Manning, Carr, and other top passers. He also showed some lapses in judgment in the pocket last year at Cincinnati and rushed throws that he should be able to make given his elite arm talent.

And then, obviously, there's the cloud hanging around Sorsby even if the NCAA doesn't successfully win its appeal. Some voters will surely leave the Texas Tech quarterback off their ballots entirely, while others may use that against him for an award with "integrity" baked into its criteria.

🎯 Should you back Sorsby to win the Heisman?

Back in January, our college football expert Rob Paul - who predicted that Mendoza would be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL draft a full year before it happened - highlighted Sorsby as his best Heisman long shot at 25/1 odds shortly after he transferred to Texas Tech. Here's what Paul had to say just a few months ago about the Cincinnati transfer: 

"Sorsby is the crown jewel of the Red Raiders' eighth-rated transfer portal class as the No. 2-rated portal player and is a big reason why Tech will be the Big 12 favorite. And he likely would have been a top-75 pick had he gone to the NFL instead of into the portal. This past season at Cincinnati, Sorsby put up 36 TDs, finished 11th in the country in QBR (81.5), and top 10 in the nation in big-time throw rate (6.4%). He's poised to put up even bigger numbers at Texas Tech and could keep the trend of transfers winning the Heisman alive."

His odds are virtually identical now to what they were then, which is both encouraging from a value standpoint and a bit puzzling given that he'll now miss two games with a cloud hanging over him, too. That's why I wouldn't personally invest too heavily into Sorsby in a market that is notoriously fickle and unpredictable.

But as a small investment? I'm all in at a reasonable price to back Sorsby in this market. He's arguably one of the five most talented passers in college football on a team that should win 11 or 12 games in the regular season, and he'll be one of the most talked-about athletes in the entire sport for the next eight months. That's enough to take a shot at Kalshi, where we can trade out of our position later on if the hype train picks up steam.