Kirby Smart, Nick Saban weigh in on the 'expensive lesson' of the Brendan Sorsby gambling case

"You can't watch the TV station without an advertisement for gambling," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Wednesday. "So the opportunity is there. It's much more prevalent in this day and age. They also have access to more money to gamble with. There's a lot of kids that, in my day, would never gamble. They didn't have money to gamble with.

"You've got to educate your players and you got to hope that they listen and learn. Sometimes it's an expensive lesson to learn not to do it."

[Brendan Sorsby's gambling probe clouds his NFL future -- even the supplemental draft looks unlikely

John Breech

Smart makes a smart point (pun intended) on the dangerous combination of easy access to gamble and influx of money to do so. In the NIL and revenue share world, football and basketball players have access to way more money than they did 25 years ago. That money has been life-changing for so many of them, but it also comes with risks and temptations.

Former Alabama coach Nick Saban, Smart's former boss in Tuscaloosa, had long been worried about gambling's potential impact on his team. Before retiring in 2024, he viewed it as a unique, pressing challenge.

"That was always my number one concern because, to me, any time you had something that became legal that was against NCAA rules, it made it a very difficult management and something that was difficult to control," Saban said. "So we have something that's not against the law, but it's against the rules, and that made it tough to manage internally."

There was recently a push to allow college athletes, who are of legal age to gamble, to bet on professional sports. An initial proposal to allow staff and players to gamble on pro sports passed, only to be recalled and overturned after significant backlash. As the rules stand, college athletes are completely prohibited from gambling on sports.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, interestingly enough, is the former coach of two of the three schools (Cincinnati, Texas Tech) involved in the Sorsby situation. Before becoming a politician, Tuberville said he always told his team three things: 1) Don't talk to agents, 2) Don't sign with agents and 3) Stay away from gamblers asking about injuries. Players are allowed to have agents now, but the gambling issues are even more paramount.

"You got this kid that's come from Cincinnati, went to Texas Tech, got a problem and a lot of it's created by online things," Tuberville said. "It's just unfortunate that this has happened. It's gonna be a lesson to learn hopefully for a lot of players."

If Sorsby is ruled ineligible, he could try to head to the NFL through the supplemental draft. However, CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones believes that path is unlikely to be successful. "If he wanted to apply to the NFL for the supplemental draft, folks I talked to believe he would not be approved," Jones said. "So the supplemental draft seems like an extremely unlikely pathway this summer. And here's why: The NFL is obviously very hard on those who gamble on NFL games ... If you are in the NFL and you do bet on your team -- win or lose -- you are banned a minimum of two years. That's how seriously the league takes this."

Sorsby was considered a potential first-round draft pick in next year's draft before the gambling investigation became public.