{"id":58797,"date":"2025-08-04T23:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T23:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/58797\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T23:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T23:27:12","slug":"usc-lineman-sues-ncaa-for-eligibility-as-riley-joins-fray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/58797\/","title":{"rendered":"USC Lineman Sues NCAA for Eligibility as Riley Joins Fray"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tUSC<\/a> head football coach Lincoln Riley hopes 24-year-old offensive lineman DaJuanye \u201cDJ\u201d Wingfield will protect quarterback Jayden Maiava this season, but Riley will need an assist from a federal judge to make that happen.<\/p>\n

\n\tWingfield is among a growing list of Division I athletes suing the NCAA to remain eligible to play beyond the exhaustion of their eligibility. Last week, the 6-foot-3, 310-pound California native sued in a Los Angeles federal district court, with the case assigned to U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent comments to the media, Riley said it \u201cisn\u2019t right<\/a>\u201d that Wingfield has to sue to keep playing and that he hasn\u2019t \u201cseen anything like it in all my years of coaching.\u201d Riley also expressed concern for Wingfield\u2019s mental health as the player goes through the court system, adding Wingfield is \u201cnot doing very good.\u201d According to Wingfield\u2019s complaint, the NCAA denied USC a request for a waiver on Wingfield\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

\n\tRepresented by attorney JaQay L. Carlyle of Plummer Carlyle Williams, Wingfield raises arguments that have worked for some similarly situated D-I athletes but not for others. Wingfield challenges the NCAA\u2019s five-year eligibility rule, which limits athletes to four seasons of intercollegiate competition\u2014including JUCO competition\u2014in any one sport within a five-year window.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWingfield claims the rule, which NCAA member conferences and colleges agree to follow as a condition of membership, violates antitrust<\/a> law because it allegedly has \u201chas substantial anticompetitive effects on two-year or junior colleges and universities that are excluded from NCAA membership.\u201d His complaint references how if he\u2019s denied a chance to play, he\u2019ll lose out on a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime\u201d NIL deal that is worth about $210,000 and is apparently contingent on him suiting up for the Trojans. Wingfield also asserts that NCAA eligibility rules \u201cdegrade the quality of competition\u201d by excluding players, and that has \u201cripple\u201d effects, including on the NFL Draft. Eligibility rules allegedly hinder athletes\u2019 chances to earn NIL deals, since the athletes\u2019 marketability is tied to their school\u2019s brand.<\/p>\n

\n\tWingfield\u2019s a seasoned college athlete who has overcome adversity to position himself to play for power conference programs. After playing at Redondo Union High School (Calif.), Wingfield enrolled at El Camino College, a junior college in Torrance, Calif., in 2019 and played for the Warriors. He didn\u2019t play in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and because he was home caring for his mother; the year didn\u2019t count against this NCAA eligibility. Wingfield played at El Camino in 2021 and received several distinctions, including being named to the Southern California Football Association National Division Central League All-Second Team while ESPN hailed him as the No. 5 JUCO prospect in the state of California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWinfield transferred to New Mexico State in 2022 but suffered a torn ACL in the Aggies\u2019 first game of the season and was granted a medical redshirt for the season. Wingfield returned to play for New Mexico in 2023, then transferred to Purdue in 2024. He started all 12 games for the Boilermakers at right guard, and transferred to USC\u2014his fourth college\u2014earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough not binding on Gee, a federal district judge in Nevada\u2014which, like California, is part of the Ninth Circuit\u2014recently granted an injunction to Nevada wide receiver Cortez Braham Jr. to play in what will be his seventh season in college sports. U.S. District Judge Miranda M. Du reasoned that Braham is\u00a0part of a labor market<\/a>\u00a0for D-I football that can sign NIL deals and, with the\u00a0House\u00a0settlement, receive revenue shares.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NCAA defeated motions for injunctions brought by several athletes who seek to play after exhausting their eligibility. The association has maintained that eligibility rules\u00a0fall outside the reach<\/a>\u00a0of antitrust scrutiny, which centers on commercial agreements whereas eligibility rules are about how long a college student can play a sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition, the NCAA has argued that one player\u2019s eligibility lacks market impact since a player who leaves a college is simply replaced by another one who enters that college. Still another argument is that NCAA eligibility rules promote college sports as a unique and fan-appealing brand played by college athletes, whose eligibility is tied in part to their academic progress and whose relationship with their universities is meaningfully different from that between a minor-league player and their team or league.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement shared with\u00a0Sportico\u00a0about Wingfield\u2019s lawsuit, an NCAA spokesperson said the association\u2019s eligibility rules \u201cenable student-athletes and schools to have fair competition.\u201d The spokesperson also said the NCAA is \u201cmaking changes to modernize college sports\u201d and that it \u201cbelieves partnering with Congress is essential\u201d to address the conflicting rulings on eligibility cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USC head football coach Lincoln Riley hopes 24-year-old offensive lineman DaJuanye \u201cDJ\u201d Wingfield will protect quarterback Jayden Maiava…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[35858,1607,399,398,396,23318,397,99,7813],"class_list":{"0":"post-58797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-antitrust","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-ncaa-legal-issues","14":"tag-ncaafootball","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-usc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}