Latest legal loss on athlete eligibility is another step closer to the end of the NCAA

The NCAA lost in court Wednesday, which is sort if like saying the sun rises in the east.

The Washington Generals of legal teams was routed again, this time when attorneys for Vanderbilt star quarterback Diego Pavia argued yet another antiquated NCAA bylaw infringed on a player’s right to earn.

It may as well have been the Harlem Globetrotters whistling and deceptively passing the ball in the middle of the courtroom, playing keep-away from the flailing NCAA — while the judge howled in delight.

This, of course, leads us to the obvious conclusion: we’re not that far from a full-blown implosion of the association that once ruled collegiate sports with an unshakeable iron fist.

In the last three years alone, the NCAA has given up longstanding fights against players earning off their name, image and likeness, free player movement, and pay for play.

Now it’s fighting on a new front: the NCAA clock, which gives students five years to complete four seasons.

Pavia’s attorneys argued in a Tennessee court that his time spent in junior college shouldn’t count against his NCAA clock because junior colleges don’t fall under NCAA purview. Therefore Pavia’s NCAA clock should not have started until he enrolled in an NCAA school.

Makes you wonder why some innovative attorney didn’t argue that point long ago.

Pavia isn’t an NFL prospect, but he can play college football and earn next season through revenue sharing and NIL opportunities. His attorneys argued that the NCAA’s discrimination of junior college transfers left them with a finite time to earn.

Until the NCAA lost in court again. 

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I know this is going to shock you, but the NCAA publicly said it disagrees with the ruling, and stopped short of saying it applied to other players in similar situations. But now there’s precedent, and the idea of spending more money defending an archaic rule isn’t realistic.

This latest loss in court will be filed away with three other groundbreaking losses that have shaken the association to its core. Even drastic recent moves to player empowerment haven’t slowed the breakdown of longstanding, untouchable norms.

- A U.S. district court judge ruled with a restraining order in December of 2023 that the NCAA can’t limit free transfers. The ensuing impact is now that players are free to move from team to team every season without losing a year of eligibility. That ruling, coupled with allowing players to benefit from NIL, has created de facto free agency without contracts and a salary cap.

- A federal court in Tennessee eviscerated the NCAA’s NIL rules earlier this year with its own injunction, giving boosters the the ability to negotiate with players through booster-funded NIL collectives before players enroll on campus.

- Then there’s the mother of all cases, House vs. NCAA that resulted in a still-to-be finalized settlement with two other cases. If finalized, it will be a loss so damaging that it will result in nearly $2.8 billion in backpay to former and current student athletes and allow schools to participate in revenue sharing with current and future players that will start an estimated $20.5 million for each academic year and increase over time.

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The NCAA taking a stand now against its outdated eligibility clock would be like spitting into a hurricane. There are bigger issues ahead, including but not limited to the last bastion of the “amateur model”: academics.

If you thought paying players and free player movement was a paradigm shift, wait until the next fight of academic reform.

It wasn’t long ago that the late Mike Leach said there should be two academic tracks for student athletes, and players would have to declare when they enroll. One track would work toward a typical degree, the other would focus on their respective sport.

In other words, football players majoring in football would take courses that prepare them for playing professionally. Finance, nutrition, kinesiology and psychology, among the sport-specific curriculum.

They scoffed at Leach in those big buildings in Indianapolis, where the bigwigs who run the NCAA protected the multi-billion dollar business with impunity.

Not anymore.

The Washington Generals just lost by 40 again. Got dunked on and run out of the gym.

Soon enough, the sun won’t rise on the NCAA. The implosion will be complete.  

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

(This story has been updated with new information.)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NCAA losing Diego Pavia eligibility case is another legal hit to power