When they chose to continue their college careers, both USC offensive lineman DJ Wingfield and UCLA wide receiver Kaedin Robinson thought the courts and NCAA had cleared the way for them to play a fifth season of football.
USC had told Wingfield as much, offering him $210,000 in NIL to join the Trojans’ offensive line. UCLA, meanwhile, offered Robinson $450,000 to be one of the Bruins’ top wideouts.
But after first seeing their waivers rejected in the spring, then suing the NCAA this summer, a U.S. District Court judge has now shut the door on either Wingfield or Robinson suiting up this fall.
Both players had hoped to prove this week in court that they were deserving of a preliminary injunction that would allow them to play out the season at USC and UCLA. Their attorneys argued that the NCAA’s Five-Year Rule, which limits athletes to four seasons in five years, violated antitrust laws by limiting athletes’ eligibility — and thus, their NIL earning potential. To block Wingfield and Robinson from playing this season, their attorneys argued, would mean causing “irreparable harm.”
But after a hearing was held for both Monday, a judge in California’s Central District court quickly rejected those claims, denying the request for injunctive relief from both players, as well as San Diego linebacker Jagger Giles.
Either could appeal the decision, but it’s unlikely that either player’s case would be heard soon enough to play the 2025 season.
Others who have challenged the NCAA’s eligibility rules in court have had inconsistent results. But in the case of Wingfield and Robinson, Judge James Selna held that the NCAA’s Five-Year Rule was not “commercial in nature” but rather a “true eligibility rule,” and therefore was not beholden to antitrust scrutiny.
Not every judge has come to the same conclusion, as a cascade of similar eligibility cases have been filed in the months since Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia won a preliminary injunction in his case against the NCAA. Pavia was granted a fifth season after challenging that the NCAA’s rule counting his junior college tenure toward his overall NCAA eligibility would unfairly limit his ability to earn NIL compensation.
The judge in Wingfield and Robinson’s case was less swayed by that argument.
“There is a subtle difference between a rule that retrains NIL compensation and a rule that limits one’s potential to negotiate a NIL agreement,” the judge wrote. “Putting aside the NIL agreements, the question of whether a player’s time has run remains in full force. The eligibility question is not tethered to the question of compensation or commercial transaction.”
In Wingfield’s case, the judge also found that the five-month delay in Wingfield requesting a temporary restraining order after being ruled ineligible in March weakened the urgency of his claims of “irreparable harm.”
Losing Wingfield will undoubtedly deal a significant blow to USC, which had been counting on Wingfield to step into a starting role along the offensive line. Without him, the Trojans will enter the season perilously thin on the interior.
Wingfield’s collegiate career began in 2019 at El Camino College, a junior college in Torrance. He left El Camino during the 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, then returned in 2021 before transferring to New Mexico in the spring of 2022.
An injury ended his first season with the Lobos before he finished a single game, but he returned to play in nine games in 2023 before transferring to Purdue, where he started along the Boilermakers’ line as a fifth-year senior in 2024.
Robinson took a similar path as Wingfield through junior college, spending one season at ASA College in Brooklyn before the pandemic, then redshirting for a season at Central Florida in 2021 before spending the next three years at Appalachian State.
Robinson was an All-Sun Belt selection at receiver last season with 53 catches for 840 yards and two touchdowns. He was expected to be one of the Bruins’ top receivers this season.