OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond called on the Big 12 Conference to suspend Brendan Sorsby after the Texas Tech quarterback won a court order that restored his eligibility and set aside a ban by the NCAA for gambling on pro and college sports.
“If Texas Tech will not do the right thing, the Big 12 should,” Drummond wrote Friday in a letter to the conference. “Texas Tech should be sanctioned. I also note that the injunction granted to Sorsby applies only to the NCAA. It does not impede the Big 12 from suspending Sorsby.”
The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned the Big 12 on Thursday of potential legal action from Texas Tech as the conference considers its options. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said the notice came shortly before the start of the league’s executive board meeting to discuss Sorsby's situation.
Drummond said claims that sanctions against Texas Tech would violate antitrust laws are meritless.
“By adopting and enforcing its bylaws, the Big 12 Conference is simply upholding integrity and fair play among membership," he said.
A Texas district court's temporary injunction that was issued Monday prevents the NCAA from enforcing its permanent ban of Sorsby, a decision that sent shock waves across college sports.
The transfer quarterback had been ruled ineligible after he acknowledged years of gambling that included more than $90,000 in wagers and at least 40 bets on his own team while he was a freshman at Indiana.
NCAA rules call for a permanent loss of eligibility for any player who wagered on his own team.
Drummond weighed in because Oklahoma State is a member of the Big 12. He suggested the conference could act under a bylaw that says a supermajority of the league’s athletic directors can sanction a member school if that school has “engaged in any action or a course of conduct materially adverse to the best interests of the conference as a whole.”
“Sadly, that fits Texas Tech to a ‘T’,” Drummond wrote. “Its actions in obtaining eligibility for Brendan Sorsby ... have constituted a shameful chapter in the story of college football. Texas Tech has acted in a manner adverse to the Big 12 and the integrity of college football as a whole."
Texas Tech says Sorsby has completed a month-long inpatient treatment program and will have to meet stipulations laid out in the court ruling if he is going to play this fall.
The school posted a 21-minute video Thursday night in which school president Lawrence Schovanec, athletic director Kirby Hocutt and coach Joey McGuire defended Texas Tech's approach with Sorsby. Hocutt said the school wasn't party to Sorsby's lawsuit against the NCAA and hasn't helped him with legal fees.
“There’s no reason whatsoever to question the integrity of our athletics department, or the competitive product that we put on the fields or on the courts each and every time that we go out,” Hocutt said. “Integrity of the game is sacred, and that’s why we’ve gone to such great lengths to ensure the monitoring and the compliance measures are in place for Brendan’s return.”
Big 12 athletic directors in a conference call Tuesday expressed strong opposition to Sorsby playing for the Red Raiders in what will be his final college season. Some of those athletic directors suggested not playing Texas Tech if he does.
The Big 12's board of directors, which is made up of presidents and chancellors from the league’s 16 schools, is set to meet Monday.
Sorsby transferred to Texas Tech in January for a reported multimillion-dollar deal after playing the past two seasons at Cincinnati, another Big 12 school. The 22-year-old Texas native first spent two seasons with the Hoosiers.
The Red Raiders, with one of college football’s most expensive rosters, won their first Big 12 title last season, set a school record with 12 wins and made the 12-team College Football Playoff.
AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
FILE - Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby (2) is interviewed after a NCAA college football game against Baylor, Oct. 25, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Tanner Pearson, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military on Saturday announced its first troop deaths due to direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, saying two were killed and another was missing in an attack on a base in Jordan.
They were killed Friday as the U.S. and partner forces defended against ballistic missile and drone attacks, a statement said. Four other service members were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals and later discharged. The dead were not identified.
Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Minutes earlier, Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the U.S. keeps attacking the Islamic Republic. The remarks read out on state TV and attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, also called President Donald Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.”
The comments came hours after a negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.
Tehran's declarations snapped another fragile thread as the war shows no end in sight. Now Khamenei warns of “lessons” not only from Iran but its armed proxies in the region, calling them the “Axis of Resistance."
The battle over the Strait of Hormuz has intensified in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the essential waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world's crude oil. The strikes threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again is on alert.
The U.S. has violated its commitments under the deal that was signed about a month ago and now Iran is “no longer implementing them,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told state TV.
There was no new word on mediation efforts.
The most significant damage from Iranian strikes on Saturday occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.
The strikes injured several people at the oil facility and caused a fire at the desalination plant, forcing several power generation units offline. It was the second attack against a desalination plant in two days in the tiny desert nation that depends on desalination for 90% of its drinking water.
Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.
Meanwhile, Iraq said it shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom’s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments.
The secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities.
The U.S. Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes hit “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.”
U.S. airstrikes hit an electricity and desalination plant in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state TV reported. IRNA said the Bonji desalination plant was destroyed, cutting off water supplies to about 10,000 people, and that a desalination plant on strategic Qeshm Island inside the strait was damaged.
Overnight strikes damaged two tunnels and a bridge, disrupting one of the main highways toward Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port that sits near the narrowest part of the strait, according to Iran's state-run news agency. IRNA said three bridges were hit Saturday, including one on a route to Bandar Abbas.
Iran acknowledged “attacks on power infrastructure” during the U.S. airstrikes for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces “experiencing extreme heat.” It did not specify what was hit.
Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.
Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring and has given Tehran significant leverage in negotiations.
Iran has said the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should pay fees to Tehran, even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. It fired on ships on recent days. Crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.
Trump has resumed threats to target power stations and bridges to try to compel Iran to loosen its hold. The U.S. in the past week reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil.
A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping.
Before the war began, the U.S. had been in talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Trump now faces political pressure to end the war and avoid the kind of prolonged Middle East conflict he had campaigned against.
Ezzidin reported from Cairo and Toropin from Washington. Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel and Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq contributed to this report.
A man displays a placard with portraits of the current and late supreme leaders and the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani at the Islamic Revolution Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People look at books which are placed for sale on a street in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks past a mural depicting a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strike on Feb. 28, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Women sit beneath a banner reading in English, "Kill Trump," during a pro-government rally in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Women gather during a pro-government rally as one holds a sign reading in English, "Kill Trump," in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
