Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’ve been looking forward to this day at the World Cup for a while. Erling Haaland will play his first game at a major international tournament for Norway, which faces Iraq at 6 p.m. ET.
In today’s SI:AM:
🏈 Sorsby’s next step
🇨🇻 World Cup stunner
🏀 What’s next for Wemby
Sorsby leaving Texas Tech
The strange saga of Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby has taken another turn.
Sorsby will go pro and apply for the NFL’s supplemental draft, the school announced Monday night.
Sorsby transferred to Texas Tech from Cincinnati after last season. He had been the No. 1 quarterback in the transfer portal after throwing for 2,800 yards and 27 touchdowns. But in late April, Sorsby announced that he was entering an inpatient rehab program for gambling addiction. At the same time, the NCAA was reported to be investigating Sorsby’s gambling, including whether he had bet on Indiana football games while he was a member of the Hoosiers. The NCAA later determined that Sorsby had gambled approximately $90,000 on professional and college sports over a four-year period, including 40 bets on Indiana football games. (He didn’t play in any of the games that he bet on.)
The NCAA quickly ruled Sorsby ineligible, but he challenged the ruling in court. On June 8, a Texas judge ruled in Sorsby’s favor, temporarily clearing the way for Sorsby to take the field this fall. But the Big 12 filed a lawsuit in federal court earlier Monday seeking an injunction that would allow the conference to enforce its own rules. The new legal challenge cast fresh doubt on Sorsby’s eligibility. Facing the possibility that a higher court could issue a ruling rendering him ineligible and with the June 22 deadline to enter the supplemental draft looming, Sorsby opted to turn pro.
The supplemental draft is an uncommon path to the NFL. No player has been selected in the supplemental draft since 2019 and the league hasn’t even held one since 2023. It is typically held in the second week of July. The NFL uses a lottery system (based on the previous season’s records) to establish the draft order. The process is more like a waiver claim than a draft. Interested teams submit bids for a player in a given round. If, for example, the Vikings place a fourth-round bid for Sorsby but the Cardinals place a third-round bid, he would go to the Cardinals. If the bids are in the same round, the player goes to the team with the higher position in the draft order. A team that selects a player in the supplemental draft gives up the corresponding pick in the regular draft the following year.
NFL talent evaluators are said to be high on Sorsby. “His arm is electric,” one NFC coordinator told Albert Breer in late April. “It would’ve been by far the best in this [draft] class.”
On a pure talent basis, Sorsby undoubtedly seems worth taking a flyer on in the supplemental draft. But NFL teams have to be concerned about the gambling issue. This isn’t like when Terrelle Pryor was ruled ineligible by the NCAA for accepting improper benefits and then entered the supplemental draft. Pryor’s transgression was a violation of NCAA-specific rules. Gambling on your team’s games is just as prohibited in the NFL as it is in college, though, and NFL teams have to have some assurance that Sorsby will keep his betting under control if they’re going to invest valuable draft capital in him.
World Cup stunner
The most interesting game of the World Cup thus far was a 0–0 draw.
Cabo Verde, making its World Cup debut, stood tall against Spain in Atlanta on Monday afternoon and came away with a well-earned point.
Spain is the defending European champion and one of the favorites to win this tournament. It dominated yesterday’s game in every respect—except for on the score sheet. Spain had 27 shot attempts, compared to just six for Cabo Verde. Sixteen of those attempts came from inside the box. But Cabo Verde goalkeeper Vozinha was a brick wall, stopping all seven of Spain’s shots on net. Vozinha, a 40-year-old who plays for a club in Portugal’s second division, went from having fewer than 50,000 followers on Instagram before the match to more than seven million.
One of the other heroes for Cabo Verde was center back Roberto “Pico” Lopes. Lopes was born and raised in Dublin and has played his entire career in Ireland. In 2018, he received a message on LinkedIn from the manager of the Cabo Verde national team gauging his interest in representing his father’s home country. The message was in Portuguese, which Lopes didn’t speak, so he ignored it. Nine months later, the manager followed up in English. Lopes realized his mistake, replied to the message and made his international debut three weeks later. (You can hear Lopes tell this story—in his thick Irish accent—in this clip.)
Stories like that make Cabo Verde even more of a lovable underdog. And after Saudi Arabia and Uruguay played to a 1–1 draw in the other Group H game later in the day, Cabo Verde’s hopes of advancing out of the group stage received a major boost.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Pat Forde: Brendan Sorsby’s College Career Is Over Because of the Big 12’s Mounting Pressure
- Andrew Headspeath: Spain Show They Can’t Win the World Cup Without Lamine Yamal Firing
- Liam McKeone: NBA Finals Loss Exposed Three Ways Victor Wembanyama Must Improve to Make Another Leap
- Ben Steiner: Four Reasons Why USMNT Should Be Worried About Australia Ahead of World Cup Clash
- Matt Verderame: Projecting Looming QB Camp Headaches for the Cardinals, Raiders and Browns
The top five…
… things I saw yesterday:
5. Dustin May’s reaction to finishing his first career complete game (and first shutout). May, a former top prospect who’s had a fairly underwhelming big league career, had never completed more than seven innings in a start at the MLB level.
4. Jackson Merrill’s nonchalant home run robbery.
3. Elijah Just’s concentration to score a beauty of a goal for New Zealand against Iran.
2. Mohammad Mohebi’s perfect header to equalize for Iran.
1. A long-range laser beam by Egypt’s Emam Ashour. (Egypt let in an own goal in the second half that tied the game for Belgium. All four matches yesterday ended in draws.)
