Talent does not equal maturity. You can teach these athletes all about the dangers of gambling, but a few will still succumb to the trap. Even after watching Brendan Sorsby destroy any goodwill he had left in the sport due to his own poor decision, Division 1 football athletes still find a way to end up on the wrong side of the NCAA rulebook.

That said, not all mistakes are equal, even when it comes to such things as betting on sports. Furthermore, the programs themselves would want to keep this under wraps as much as possible. The appreciation on honesty will be overshadowed by the possibility of a PR nightmare that Texas Tech has to deal with. But nothing stays hidden forever. A recent report has exposed two players of an SEC program for gambling violations.

According to a report by Sam Sklar of the Clarion Ledger, two Mississippi State football players, whose names are redacted, were handed minor penalties for gambling violations. The players breached NCAA bylaw 10.3, which prohibits athletes, staff, and conference employees from sports wagering, and are categorized as Level III violations.

As per Sklar, the first Mississippi State player was caught gambling on the Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. The player claimed he only placed a $50 sports wager on the Super Bowl on Kalshi. While the platform is permitted in Mississippi, the state prohibits other sports betting apps, such as FanDuel and DraftKings.

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On the other hand, the second football player was gambling on the NBA All-Star Game and 3-point contest using the same prediction platform, Kalshi. He was caught on February 15, on the day of the All-Star Game. On the 3-point contest, he placed a bet and won $64 when Damian Lillard won. He then lost the other bet on the NBA All-Star Game, where he bet on the announcer mentioning certain words during his announcement.

The program was able to expose both players through ProhiBet, an app used to track and monitor sports wagering activities. The SEC partnered with Integrity Compliance 360 (IC360) to deploy this tracking tool.

All student-athletes in the conference are required to download the app on their devices so that their program’s compliance teams are notified whenever betting activity is detected on those devices.

The same tracking tool is used by the Big 12. While Brendan Sorsby was with the Cincinnati Bearcats, the app notified the program’s compliance team of a betting activity on his device. However, he did not go ahead with the act and was educated on gambling rules again before his case was left alone. But a later NCAA investigation revealed that the quarterback had placed thousands of bets during his time at Indiana and Cincinnati.

For the first Mississippi State player, he had a meeting with the program’s compliance staff nine days after the app gave the alert. In the meeting, he admitted his involvement. And, like Sorsby, he was educated on the gambling rules, with no other penalties imposed on him.

The other player who won money paid $66.47 to a charity of his choice after admitting he had only gambled on those two games. Like the other player, he was given a talk on education around this issue as well.

This kind of conduct gets bundled up with others so as to make it a bit difficult to spot unless you really knew what you were looking for. For example, according to the Clarion Ledger, the program had another violation recently. One of their outgoing transfers refused to pay the rent for his apartment despite having one of the team’s assistant coaches as a co-signer.

With the international student-athlete needing a non-parent co-signer, the assistant coach decided to help out. The names of both the player and the assistant coach are redacted. In the end, the athlete agreed to pay the fee, while the assistant coach received a talk on the rules.

Gambling is not the end of the world when it comes to college football. It is the extent of the activity and the player’s remorse and acceptance afterwards that can decide a lot on how he is treated and punished.

Former LSU wide receiver Kayshon Boutte is a classic example of a story with redemption. While playing at Baton Rouge, Boutte allegedly engaged in a massive sports betting habit, placing over 8,900 individual wagers.

In an essay published on the Players’ Tribune, the current Patriots WR detailed his experience without protecting his ego.

“I’d wake up early in the morning, and the first thing I’d do was bet. I’d stay up late and bet. All day. All night. I had insomnia, so if I woke up in the middle of the night, phone next to the bed, I’d bet,” Boutte wrote.

He was charged with felony computer fraud and a misdemeanor count of underage gambling, though the criminal charges were later dropped after he completed a diversion program and addressed his gambling habit.

First Assistant District Attorney Tracey Barbera spoke about this to The Associated Press, “Betting against himself would be the only way that he could control the bet,” she said. “In light of his mitigatory actions, we do not believe a felony prosecution is appropriate.”

Sorsby and these young athletes from Mississippi can learn from his story. Mistakes are going to be made when you are living such a high stakes life as the one that college football requires out of these young men. But once faced with the consequences of their actions, it is how they deal with the fallout that determines their future in the sport ahead.