Friends! Countrymen! Welcome to your Thursday FOIAball.
The funniest stance in the Texas Tech-Brendan Sorsby drama came from Red Raider fans who were convinced the whole rest of the sport (media, fans, individual programs, conferences) worked itself into a furor solely because they possessed a collective anti-Lubbock agenda.
The loudest accusation was lobbed, as always, by the school’s megabooster: Cody Campbell.
“The college football world doesn't think that Texas Tech should be as good as we are,” he told Outkick’s Dan Dakich. “We've been a disruptor, just like Indiana has. And so, we're a target and we have been even before any of this started.”
Campbell then proposed a counterfactual.
“If this had happened in LSU, you know, people would say, ‘Ah, it's LSU.’ You know, they're always going to kind of do what they do … But it happened at Texas Tech and, you know, people don't want to compete with us.”
Sure, but in another, more real sense, no. What people were furious about was that, after Sorsby was granted an injunction to play despite his gamblacious past, Texas Tech charged ahead in a manner that blithely brushed aside everyone’s serious concerns about the integrity of the sport.
It’s a classic case of just because you could doesn’t mean you should. But, ya know, that wrapped up alright. I think? Water under the bridge.
Last month, another grave threat to the sanctity of the sport arrived, when LSU tried to roster two players who’d left college and participated in NFL training camps.
The situations are remarkably similar. The players, like Sorsby, got a court ruling allowing them to play. LSU, like Texas Tech, used that ruling as cover to act with wanton disregard for the collective interest of the sport.
The rest of the sport flipped. Posters raged about Lane Kiffin. The media covered every twist. Like the Big XII, the SEC warned LSU of serious consequences. It went a step further, threatening to kick the school out of the conference.
But one person—who has been rather vocal about the industry’s massive problems and how he alone can Protect and/or Save college sports—was curiously silent.
Cody Campbell.
Wanna know why?
Man, as soon as I wrote that sentence, I thought, “That’s a great place for a paywall.”
But our Thursday newsletters are always free. And I’d rather ask than force you to upgrade.
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Either way, the answer is below.
On Aug. 23, the Cleveland Browns waived former Ole Miss player Dae’Quan Wright, who quickly agreed to return to school. Not his old school, mind you, but his coach’s new home, joining Lane Kiffin at LSU.
A couple hours after the news broke, a Texas Tech fan tagged Cody Campbell on Twitter.
“Weird, crickets on this. Not too long ago there were sports media heads everywhere crying about protecting college sports.”
Setting aside that the post lamenting a lack of attention was a reply to Adam Schefter, Campbell responded with a rather anodyne assessment of the situation.
“This is one of the many reasons why we need to pass the Protect College Sports Act into law. Congress is in recess now, but it must be a high priority when they come back in September.”
Conferences, though, didn’t wait for Congress. The SEC and others issued vociferous statements objecting to NFL players returning, warning of repercussions for any member that disobeyed.
A week and a half later, Wright and another Ole Miss-turned-LSU player were granted an injunction that said the NCAA couldn’t ban them.
The ruling came two days before LSU’s season opener, a cataclysm on the sport’s doorstep.
At the same time, the SEC filed a suit against LSU to enforce its bylaws.
The players sat out Week One, but the SEC didn’t relent, raising the possibility of kicking one of the biggest names in college football out of the sport’s premier conference.
LSU, faced with the spectre of becoming Voodoo Notre Dame, caved.
This was, like, the most existentialist of all the existentialistic college sports debates. In this NIL era, what does it mean to be an amateur? But for the fortnight the debate raged, Campbell didn’t wade into the discourse.
He shared a trailer for a documentary about Red Raiders football. He weighed in on TCU banning a reporter from its locker room. He posted several commercials from his Saving College Sports movement, which featured Nick Saban and Deion Sanders.
He only butted up near it once, jumping into a spat between Sens. Ted Cruz and Chris Murphy. Last weekend, Cruz shared a clip from College GameDay, where Pat McAfee said the sport was in “absolute chaos” and Saban called the idea of NFL players returning to college “Crazy ... absolutely crazy."
Murphy replied to Cruz by citing the astronomical revenues of college football, pushing back against the notion that everything was falling apart at the seams.
Campbell responded, but not by weighing in on LSU’s actions.
“Yeah, @ChrisMurphyCT knows ball WAY better than the GOAT, Coach Saban! I mean, seriously, Senator, (with all due respect) have you ever even worn a jock strap??”
We have to pause and admit that that is just the sickest burn.
Yesterday, before LSU officially relented, Campbell posted his ad featuring Sanders and called out Murphy again.
“Would you like to step up and claim that you know more about college sports than Coach Prime??”
But LSU’s barreling forward with a plan that might ruin the entire concept of college athletics forever never came up on his Twitter feed.
It’s not like Campbell is against publicly bashing other schools. When Georgia announced its teams wouldn’t schedule Texas Tech amid the Sorsby drama, he tagged Grok to dunk on the football team’s spate of arrests.
He also went on McAfee’s ESPN show to accuse the University of Texas of being steers and not bulls, saying the Longhorns dodging Texas Tech’s proposal to play opening week reeked of no balls.
Which, again, is just killer material.
So. Media furious. Conferences fuming. Fans livid. The very notion of amateurism hanging in the balance. Cody Campbell quiet.
Just guessing here, but something Campbell posted yesterday might explain it.
“Geaux Tigers,” he tweeted.
Campbell was quoting his son, a high school offensive lineman and college prospect, who is going to Baton Rouge Saturday for a recruiting visit.
And look, I totally get the idea of a father wanting to put the interests of his son ahead of himself and maybe choosing to bite his tongue at a time when speaking out might negatively affect his child.
But, like, when you’ve personally steered millions of dollars into the efforts to shape college sports, running national TV ads and lobbying Congress, and a scandal is raging about the very thing you care most about in your whole life, I feel like speaking up is more important.
Otherwise, it makes it seem like when you say college sports desperately needs saving, you mean except at an extremely critical juncture where saving college sports might hurt your kid’s chance of playing for the coach who was actively trying to wreck the whole thing.
Or maybe he was happy someone else was taking the heat off Texas Tech signing Tommy Castellanos. No one complained about that! Ergo, your theory was dumb. Go Beavers.
Hey, hey, thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week.
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Cody Campbell via John E. Moore III/Contributor/Getty; Lane Kiffin via Icon Sportswire/Contributor/Getty
