This past season, at Vanderbilt, Diego Pavia slayed Alabama.
Last year, while at New Mexico State, he beat Auburn.
The brash, playmaking quarterback appears to have a new victim: the NCAA.
On Wednesday, a Tennessee judge granted Pavia’s request for a temporary injunction against the NCAA and its rules related to seasons of eligibility.
Pavia, exhausted of eligibility after having played two years of junior college and three years in Division I, is challenging the NCAA’s policy that counts a junior college stint on a player’s eligibility clock. NCAA athletes get five calendar years to play four seasons. Junior college counts as a season of play — a policy at the heart of the case.
The court, at least temporarily, has agreed with the quarterback — junior college, which is not an NCAA institution, should not count against a player’s NCAA eligibility. According to the court’s ruling, the NCAA cannot enforce its eligibility rules that would normally prohibit Pavia from playing one more season of Division I football.
He is, for now, eligible to play next season.
The NCAA can still appeal the decision, but the association’s chances are slim based on the track record alone. And, yes, the judge, perhaps this same one, could rule in the NCAA’s favor after a trial plays out. Given the preliminary ruling, that is not only unlikely but by the time a trial ends, Pavia will have completed his season next fall.
Wednesday’s ruling is a landmark moment. It not only paves the way for all junior college players to gain an additional year of eligibility, but it may invite future legal challenges over the NCAA’s traditional eligibility policy for even non-junior college athletes — the five-years-to-play-four rule.
The 30,000-foot view of this? It is yet another court ruling that cripples a long-standing NCAA policy — at very least, the third major court decision in the last year to bar the association from enforcing a rule.
A West Virginia court made it possible for athletes who are transferring a second time or more to play immediately. A ruling in a Tennessee federal court made the NCAA’s interim NIL policy mostly moot, permitting boosters and booster-led collectives to negotiate with athletes before they enroll.
And, now, seasons of eligibility is on the chopping or changing block.
“My Lawyers are legit,” Pavia tweeted in a post Wednesday night. “Ryan and Sal I appreciate yall! God is good, All the time.”
Around college athletics, Wednesday’s ruling generated somewhat panicked reactions as administrators and coaches sought to understand the move.
Do all former junior college players now have their eligibility extended?
The NCAA did not provide clarity on the ruling as it relates to other players in a similar position as Pavia. At least for now, there is no change to the eligibility rules that would affect all athletes. The order only applies to Pavia — for now.
“Can all of our junior college guys come back?” asked one athletic administrator. “Well, they’ve got a pretty good argument.”
In other court cases in the past, the NCAA eventually provided some sort of clarity. In the West Virginia ruling, the association basically changed its transfer rules to adhere to the court’s decision. In the Tennessee NIL case, the organization, for the most part, stopped enforcing or investigating cases related to name, image and likeness.
Pavia’s lawyer, Ryan Downton of the Texas Trial Group, said the hope is that the ruling “may open the door for other former junior college players to obtain an additional year of eligibility without filing a lawsuit.”
And what of Pavia’s future at Vanderbilt?
“While the Court’s ruling does not restrict where Diego can play next season, he loves Vanderbilt and Coach Lea,” Downton said in the statement. “So long as he receives an appropriate NIL package, I expect to see him in the black and gold for as long as he has eligibility remaining and Jerry Kill and Tim Beck are coaching in Nashville.”
The NCAA released a statement noting its disappointment in the court ruling and reminding us that the eligibility rules are “overwhelmingly supported” by NCAA member schools.
“The NCAA is making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but a patchwork of state laws and court opinions make clear that partnering with Congress is essential to provide stability for the future of all college athletes,” the statement said.
Notice the mention of Congress. It is not by accident.
For five years now, the NCAA has regularly lobbied Congress for assistance, first for NIL guardrails, then to prevent athlete employment and, most recently, to codify the House settlement case to give it protection to enforce rules.
Some actually believe the Pavia ruling is helpful to congressional action.
“On the bright side for the NCAA, this may strengthen their case for congressional intervention,” said Gabe Feldman, a Tulane sports law professor well versed in such NCAA cases.
He’s got a point. It’s one thing for the courts to target NCAA rules — restrictive and punitive — around transferring and around athlete compensation.
Now they’re coming after, of all things, NCAA rules around eligibility?
“The NCAA is in an antitrust vortex,” Feldman said.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the court shot down all of the NCAA’s arguments for its rules around eligibility. Such rules, the NCAA contends, preserve the character and uniqueness of college, create open opportunities for future athletes, and prevent age and experience disparities among athletes.
The Court “is not persuaded,” the judge wrote. The arguments “fall flat.”
At the center of Pavia’s argument is money. He stands to earn at least $1 million next year in college, he says in the filing. Starting in July, schools are permitted to directly share revenue with athletes as part of the House antitrust settlement. It paves the way for millions of dollars — as much as $20.5 million annually per school — to be shared with athletes in a giant step as major college sports moves from an amateurism model to a professionalized concept.
It’s a good reason for athletes — especially those undrafted players — to remain in college as long as they can. Can you get $300,000 in salary in the Canadian Football League? Because that’s the amount that starters on a power school football team will likely make next fall.
At the elite football powers, their star players could be at more than a half-million in salary and highly touted quarterbacks are into the seven figures.
There are now millions of reasons for athletes to remain in college as long as possible.
The next court case is invariably right around the corner. Instead of receiving five years to play four seasons, why isn’t it six years to play five?
Or seven to play six?
Eight to seven?
“It’s not going to end,” says one administrator, “until we collectively bargain.”
