USC football head coach Lincoln Riley did not hide his frustrations with the NCAA amid its ongoing legal battle with one of his players.
In January, the Trojans landed offensive lineman DJ Wingfield in the transfer portal to shore up the team’s depth at left guard. Wingfield just needed the NCAA to grant a waiver request that would give him another year of eligibility. Neither the school nor the player expected any issues.
However, the NCAA denied Wingfield’s request in March as well as a subsequent appeal. With the college football season just around the corner, Wingfield sued the NCAA seeking injunctive relief so that he could take the field.
Riley weighed in on the issue Friday after holding team practice.
“It isn’t right,” the USC head coach said, via the L.A. Times’ Ryan Kartje. “I haven’t seen anything like it in all my years of coaching.”
Riley also called on the NCAA to “just do the right thing” and let Wingfield play out his final season.
If the NCAA’s ruling holds, Wingfield would be stripped of the $210,000 in NIL money promised by USC, a payday that he described as “once in a lifetime.”
Wingfield and USC both believed the waiver would be approved, given the recent legal victory of college quarterback Diego Pavia. The Vanderbilt QB went through a similar situation and later won a preliminary injunction from a U.S. District Court to gain an extra year of eligibility.
The 24-year-old lineman played his first two seasons at El Camino College, a JUCO program based in L.A. County, California. He later transferred to New Mexico State in 2022 and tore his ACL in the very first game of the season, immediately ending his campaign.
Wingfield played nine games for New Mexico in 2023 before landing a starting job at Purdue last season.
