Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia suing NCAA over eligibility rules

Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia sued the NCAA in federal courtroom Friday, alleging the group’s bylaws that cut back the variety of seasons junior school gamers can compete at Division I colleges are illegal and limit gamers’ potential to earn cash off their title, picture and likeness.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court docket for the Center District of Tennessee in Nashville, requests an injunction that might forestall the NCAA from implementing its bylaws relating to junior school participant limits and grant Pavia two extra seasons of eligibility.

“The JUCO Eligibility Limitation Bylaws neither promote competitors nor profit school athletes with respect to their impression on individuals who attend junior schools earlier than transferring to NCAA colleges,” the lawsuit says. “These guidelines stifle the competitors within the labor marketplace for NCAA Division I soccer gamers, harming school athletes and degrading the standard of Division I soccer consumed by the general public.

“These harms are opposite to Defendant’s said mission of selling the well-being of school athletes and are the very ills federal antitrust regulation seeks to treatment. Pavia, and different former JUCO soccer gamers who’re harmed by this unlawful restraint, have a small window of time to compete in Division I soccer.”

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The lawsuit argues that the NCAA and its member establishments “have entered an unlawful settlement to restrain and suppress competitors” and are violating the federal Sherman Act.

The lawsuit says junior school transfers face eligibility restrictions that “will not be positioned on athletes who select to delay entry to a Division I NCAA school to attend prep college, serve within the army, and even to compete professionally in one other sport.”

Pavia, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, advised ESPN final month that he did not have a single FBS or FCS scholarship supply popping out of highschool. Solely two Division II colleges — Western Colorado and Western New Mexico — gave him an opportunity to play quarterback.

He performed two seasons at New Mexico Army Institute, a two-year junior school, earlier than transferring to New Mexico State, the place he performed in 2022 and 2023. He enrolled at Vanderbilt in June with the idea that he would have just one season of eligibility.

Pavia, 23, has helped revive Vanderbilt’s once-moribund program. The Commodores are 6-3 heading into Saturday’s recreation in opposition to South Carolina (4:15 p.m. ET, SEC Community/ESPN+) after dropping their last 10 video games in 2023.

Pavia has handed for 1,677 yards with 15 touchdowns and three interceptions whereas main the workforce in speeding with 563 yards and 4 touchdowns.

The Commodores upset then-No. 1 Alabama 40-35 on Oct. 5. That they had misplaced each considered one of their earlier 60 video games in opposition to top-five groups within the Related Press ballot and hadn’t overwhelmed the Crimson Tide in 40 years.

The lawsuit additionally takes problem with the NCAA’s bylaws that begin a participant’s eligibility clock as soon as he enters a two-year college, even when he does not play, in addition to its redshirt rule and four-year eligibility restrict.

“As a result of Pavia can not relive his quick school profession, the hurt inflicted by the JUCO Eligibility Limitations Bylaws is irreparable and ongoing, and non permanent and preliminary injunctive aid is critical,” the lawsuit says. “Pavia brings this motion to place a cease to the unjustified anticompetitive restriction on universities who search to compete for school athletes, and to revive freedom of financial alternative for himself and different school soccer gamers.”