FRISCO, Texas — Cincinnati football coach Scott Satterfield told The Athletic on Wednesday that Texas Tech was among multiple schools that spoke with former quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s camp about transferring before the Bearcats’ 2025 season ended, violating the NCAA’s tampering rules. Sorsby’s agent denied such contact.

The Sorsby drama of the past few months has lingered over this week’s Big 12 Media Days, even as Sorsby has left Texas Tech to prepare for next year’s NFL Draft following court battles and pushback over his admitted NCAA gambling violations and attempts to play.

Asked about Sorsby’s departure from Cincinnati to Texas Tech via the transfer portal last winter, Satterfield said he sat down with Sorsby with three games left in the season to see where he stood on his future. The quarterback said he would wait until the end of the season and decide between returning to Cincinnati, going pro or entering the portal, according to his former coach.

“We had already heard that schools had reached out — Texas Tech in particular had already reached out — with four games left,” Satterfield said. “So we knew we wouldn’t be able to compete financially with that, so we’d started looking for quarterbacks. … He knew that if we tried to come up with money to pay him, we’re not going to have enough for other positions. Wished him good luck, and that was it.”

Sorsby filed formal paperwork with Cincinnati on Dec. 15 to enter the portal in January. When reached by The Athletic for comment Wednesday, Ron Slavin, Sorsby’s agent, denied pre-portal contact. Texas Tech acknowledged a request for comment but did not immediately provide one.

“Never heard from teams (during the 2025 season),” Slavin told The Athletic.

Schools are not allowed to contact players from other programs until the transfer portal opens in early January, but intermediaries such as agents and trainers are frequently used to get around NCAA tampering rules.

After a 7-1 start to the season, Cincinnati lost its last four regular-season games. When asked whether any potential tampering could have played a role in the season’s shift, Satterfield downplayed it, saying Sorsby was practicing well and played well against TCU.

“(Tampering) happens no matter how you finish the season for everybody,” he said. “If you’ve got a good player, people are going to contact them. It’s just how we live right now. Everybody’s got agents, and so the player never does it. They don’t really talk to anybody. The agents do all the talking, and they talk to the GMs out there recruiting people. It’s the world we’re living in right now, so there’s nothing you’re going to do about it.”

Cincinnati still has an active lawsuit against Sorsby to collect a $1 million exit fee over his departure, stemming from an NIL agreement. A status conference hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Cincinnati has also received a letter of inquiry from the NCAA regarding the investigation into Sorsby’s gambling, according to someone briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. That is not unexpected given the known details about Sorsby’s gambling at multiple schools.

Satterfield wouldn’t comment on it but reiterated the school’s stance that it was unaware of Sorsby’s previous betting on Indiana football as a team member there or his betting on Cincinnati men’s basketball while at UC, which is against NCAA rules. A school spokesperson wouldn’t comment specifically on the letter but reiterated Cincinnati’s general stance on the matter.

“We have had continuous conversations with the NCAA since the initial reports related to impermissible sports wagering began,” the school statement said. “As we have stated before, we do not believe any athletics official or staff member was aware of any impermissible sports wagering.”

Sorsby’s time with Cincinnati has come under scrutiny regarding how much the program knew about his gambling, a topic that was reignited when Slavin went on a Dallas radio station June 17 and stated: “If anybody should be questioned or be catching heat it should be Cincinnati, because they knew for two years and never said anything and didn’t do anything about it.”

The school continues to push back.

“Absolutely we didn’t know,” Satterfield said Wednesday. “If we knew he was doing anything illegal, we would not have played him.”

Satterfield confirmed previous reporting from The Athletic that an attempt by Sorsby to bet on UFC had been flagged in 2024, but that is not against NCAA rules because it is not an NCAA sport. Multiple people briefed on the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, also told The Athletic that in the summer of 2025, ahead of Sorsby’s second season with the Bearcats, the quarterback approached Cincinnati’s compliance office to clarify again that he could bet on UFC. He was again reminded of the gambling restrictions for college athletes.

A separate record request obtained by The Athletic revealed that Sorsby had a Bet365 account registered under his name in Kentucky, where he lived, that made roughly 300 wagers in 2025 solely on mixed martial arts (such as UFC) and NASCAR, all of which were permitted under NCAA rules.

— Justin Williams contributed to this report.

Bruno Guimaraes has informed Newcastle United of his wish to leave St James’ Park and join Arsenal.

The Premier League champions are stepping up their pursuit of the 28-year-old and have indicated a willingness to pay up to £60million for the midfielder.

The Athletic reported in June that Arsenal had a verbal offer — worth below £60m — rebuffed.

Newcastle insisted at the time that they would not entertain bids for Guimaraes. There has been no club-to-club contact so far and the north east side are currently maintaining that position.

Guimaraes has two years left on his contract, having signed a five-year extension in October 2023. That deal had a temporary £100m release clause inserted, but it expired in June 2024 without being exercised.

Newcastle have already sold Anthony Gordon to Barcelona this summer for £69.3m ($93.2m), with Sandro Tonali having joined Tottenham Hotspur in a deal worth up to £100m.

Guimaraes was a part of Carlo Ancelotti’s Brazil squad at this summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, starting every match before they were eliminated by Norway in the round of 16 and providing four assists.

The midfielder has established himself as a key player for Newcastle since joining from Lyon in January 2022. He has made 153 Premier League appearances, scoring 30 times and recording 26 assists.

The Brazilian was also part of the team which won the Carabao Cup in 2025. After that game, an emotional Guimaraes said: “This is my second home. We are making history. Some day, when I leave this club, I want the fans to sing my name the way they do to (Alan) Shearer.”

Eddie Howe’s side admire Monaco midfielder Lamine Camara, who has been tracked long term, while The Athletic also reported that Auxerre’s Kevin Danois is among others being monitored. Newcastle will look to replace any midfielders that are sold this summer.

‘Arsenal are determined to get their man’

Analysis by Arsenal correspondent James McNicholas

Arsenal have been admirers of Bruno Guimaraes for some time, and it seems Mikel Arteta and Andrea Berta are determined to get their man this summer.

Bruno would be a Premier League-ready option for Arteta’s midfield, able to feature as either a partner or alternative to Declan Rice. Given the demands on Rice over the last 12 months, an experienced addition to Arteta’s midfield options is arguably all the more necessary.

At 28, Bruno would be at the older end of Arsenal’s recruitment range. With the club willing to listen to offers for the likes of Gabriel Jesus, Christian Norgaard and Leandro Trossard, perhaps Arsenal reason there is a need to offset those potential departures by introducing some leadership and experience.

‘Losing Guimaraes would feel existential’

Analysis by Newcastle correspondent Chris Waugh

If Newcastle were to sell Guimaraes AND Sandro Tonali during the same summer, then they may as well just give up now.

The optics that would send — for supporters and to current and prospective players — would be terrible and would compound what has already been a challenging off-season.

Guimaraes is Newcastle captain, he is their talisman and he has an emotional bond with supporters. Remove him from the side and Newcastle lose their creative heartbeat and offensive purpose (as the statistics when he does not feature prove).

With Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak having already left over the past 10 months and Tonali set to follow, Newcastle losing three of their best players is already hard enough for Eddie Howe to deal with. But were he to see Guimaraes depart too, even if the money on offer was exorbitant (which this proposal via an intermediary was not), then Howe would head into 2026-27 with an inexperienced and untested side.

Rightly, Newcastle insist Guimaraes is not for sale and they have no intention of allowing the Brazil international to leave.

Occasionally players can be invaluable to a team. Guimaraes is certainly that for Newcastle right now. Losing him, especially when no first-XI signings have arrived, would feel existential.

THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, Wimbledon — In one of the most improbable runs in recent tennis history, Arthur Féry, the British wild card ranked No. 114, is through to the Wimbledon semifinals another staggeringly impressive display, this time beating the Italian No. 9 seed and French Open finalist Flavio Cobolli 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-0.

In doing so, he became the first man to reach this stage of Wimbledon as a wild card since Goran Ivanišević in 2001, who went on to win the title.

Whatever happens from here, this straight-sets victory extended Féry’s extraordinary run of results. There was not a single person in tennis who saw this coming at the start of a tournament — that a player who had only ever played one Grand Slam match in his career and who hadn’t been ranked high enough for automatic entry would be one of the last four men standing come the second Friday. There are echoes of his compatriot Emma Raducanu winning the U.S. Open as an 18-year-old qualifier in 2021.

Féry, 23, has dealt with injuries since leaving Stanford University following three years there between 2020 and 2023, but he has performed miracle after miracle this fortnight. He beat Zizou Bergs and then Grigor Dimitrov in five sets, having been down two sets to one and a break down (a double break against Bergs) in the fourth against both. And after pulling off those acts of escapology, it was natural to wonder how much would he have left in the tank against a player as good as Cobolli.

But rather than looking fatigued, Féry produced his best and most complete performance of the tournament in a dominant win over a player who only last month was contesting a French Open final. Féry was playing in an ATP Challenger event, the rung below the main tour, in Birmingham that week, having lost in the second round of French Open qualifying. Throughout the tournament, Féry’s coaches have said that nothing fazes him, and that the bigger the occasion the more comfortable and inspired he feels.

Those qualities were certainly in evidence on Wednesday, and Féry will move up to No. 36 in the rankings next week. He’ll almost be seeded at the Grand Slams — an incredible jump for someone whose previous career high was the No. 114 he currently occupies.

Next up is Alexander Zverev, the No. 2 seed and Cobolli’s conqueror in Paris. Don’t expect Féry to be fazed.