The most absurd, ridiculous and laughable development in college athletics this week should have been Judge Ken Curry granting of a temporary restraining order prohibiting the NCAA from banning Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby for extensive violations of its sports wagering bylaws.
After all, it left the NCAA as the only sports governing body on earth that can't sideline a player for, among other things, betting on his own team, as Sorsby did at least 40 times when he was part of the Indiana football program.
But then along comes a new contender: an avalanche of rants and threats and hypocritical posturing by university presidents, athletic directors and conferences as a whole blaming Texas Tech for a judge's dumb ruling.
They've even taken it a step further and declared that unless the Red Raiders "do the right thing" and sit Sorsby, they'll stop playing Texas Tech or kick Tech out of the Big 12 or boycott West Texas crude or who knows what?
Nebraska says it "will not schedule any contests vs. Texas Tech in any sport." Georgia has issued the same edict. Kansas State's athletic director said there have been discussions inside the Big 12 -- of which Texas Tech is a member -- of doing the same. (Hello, collusion lawsuit.) Others have said Tech should be "ashamed" and so on.
Look, you can find Curry's decision to be absurd and damaging -- and still roll your eyes at all of these hot takes.
Does everyone know this is college athletics? Doing the right thing hasn't been a thing in decades, if ever.
Scandals. Crimes. Cover-ups. No-show classes. Ponzi schemers. Sexual assaults. Lawsuits. Child abuse. G League players. Immoral coaches. And so on and so on. College sports has seen everything, almost all of it excused, defended or even concealed by nearly every school in America.
Cast the first stone.
Sure, it might be commendable if Tech decided to prioritize guarding the integrity and health of the sport at large. But when has anyone else done that? And should Tech really be punished if, like everyone else, it doesn't?
Tech's counterargument is that doing the right thing is standing by a player it brought in who is dealing with an addiction issue.
"We owe it to the young man," Cody Campbell, chair of Texas Tech's board of regents, a former Red Raiders football player and a billionaire, told ESPN on Wednesday. "I hope every player who sees a school cast a player aside when it becomes inconvenient from a public relations standpoint remembers this."
As Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt added, "The integrity of sport matters. So does the integrity of how we treat a 22-year-old who sought help, entered residential treatment and is working every day toward recovery."
That's fine, but this is also about a potentially great quarterback. Let's be honest about that too.
Whataboutism is a tired argument. Someone could always step out and adhere to some shared standard of behavior, but that's some fantasy that very few, if any, of Tech's current critics have ever subscribed to, let alone acted on.
In college athletics, everything is about winning or, more specifically, everything is about the money that winning brings. It's a feature, not a bug. It's actually part of the fun.
It's not that there aren't good stories and good people and college degrees and so on that come along with it, but those are pleasant by-products, not the main point.
There is no moral authority here. History has shown there are no white hats, just grimy gray all around.
Asking one school to become the first to look out for the greater good or get thrown out is absurd.
Was the apparently haughty Big Ten doing what was best for college athletics when it repeatedly raided other conferences in realignment the past 15 years, effectively killing off Big East football and the venerable, 108-year-old Pac-12?
Or was that just the league justifying the carnage, dead rivalries and competitive imbalance left behind because, hey, that's business and it needed a few more bucks?
As much as everyone except one clueless judge down in Texas understands that the integrity of sport should be protected at all costs, conference realignment caused far more harm to college athletics writ large than whether Brendan Sorsby once bet on his 4-8 Hoosiers team.
The wild threats and embarrassing dramatics are pointless. No, the Big 12 isn't going to throw Texas Tech out over this; that would be financially prohibitive if even legally possible.
"Texas Tech will defend itself vigorously and aggressively because they have no grounds to go after us," Campbell said.
Wasting time on such a thing distracts from the real challenge: finding a way to end governance via temporary injunctions from local judges. Ken Curry has no idea what he is doing, so find a way (either through federal law or collective bargain) to prevent him (or judges like him) from having so much power.
Attacking Texas Tech accomplishes none of that.
"We are following a court order by a judge in our state," Campbell said. "What did we do wrong? Nothing. Thump your chest all you want, but the kid is eligible."
And if you think your school -- or any school -- wouldn't play him if he had transferred there instead of Tech, then we've got some mountainside property in Lubbock to sell you.
Hate the ruling, but don't hate the game. And then fix it.