Former Weber State football player Devin Pugh challenges NCAA transfer rule

Steve Berkowitz | USA TODAY Sports

Lawyers representing a former college football player on Thursday filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA that challenges the association’s rules requiring many Division I athletes who transfer to sit out a year before playing at their new school.

The case — which also seeks an end to the NCAA’s scholarship limits — was filed in a federal court in Indianapolis, where the NCAA is headquartered. It is being led by a Seattle-based law firm that has several cases pending against the NCAA, including one basically centered on the scholarship limits.

The named plaintiff in this suit is Devin Pugh, who played at Weber State, a Football Championship Subdivision school, and then at Colorado State-Pueblo, a Division II school.

According to the complaint, Pugh received one-year, renewable scholarships from Weber State in 2010, when he redshirted, 2011 and 2012. Following the 2011 season, there was a coaching change. Although Pugh’s scholarship was renewed for the 2012-13 school year, the suit alleges that after the 2012 season, Pugh was told his scholarship would not be renewed for the following year and “he should look into transferring to another school.”

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Pugh alleges that he received scholarship offers from FCS and Bowl Subdivision schools, but that all were contingent on Pugh being able to preserve both of his remaining seasons of eligibility. Because the NCAA’s rules generally require an FCS football player who transfers to an FCS or FBS school to sit out a year and lose a season of eligibility, the suit alleges that Pugh asked the NCAA for a hardship waiver that would allowed him to play immediately for a new school and keep both of his remaining seasons of eligibility. The NCAA denied the request, according to the suit.

“The NCAA’s limitation on the mobility of college athletes is patently unlawful,” the suit states. “For a striking contrast, one can simply examine the unfettered mobility of the players’ coaches. Football coaches, including assistant coaches, are free to leave a school at any time they choose to take another job in the college or professional football ranks. This ability to better their own situation has allowed coaches to reap enormous financial benefits.”

So Pugh moved to Colorado State-Pueblo because an NCAA rule allows a Division I football player to transfer to a Division II school without having to sit out and without losing a season of eligibility. But the scholarship he received from the Colorado State-Pueblo only covered Pugh’s tuition, the complaint says, forcing him to go from having $3,000 a year in loans at Weber State to having $6,000 a year in loans.

Pugh’s 2013 season at Colorado State-Pueblo was shortened by injury, and after the summer of 2014, he left school for a full-time job.

The NCAA’s transfer rules and scholarship limits have “injured thousands of student-athletes by causing them to either lose an opportunity to transfer schools or give up a year of play,” the suit alleges. “Division I football players who have lost grants-in-aid at their current schools are further faced with the decision to transfer to a Division I school where they are unlikely to receive full grants-in-aid, if any aid at all, or transfer to a less competitive Division II school.”

This suit is the fourth one pending against the NCAA that is being led by lawyer Steve Berman and his firm of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. The firm also is involved with cases pertaining to concussions and the NCAA’s limits on what athletes can receive while playing sports.

“We are unaware of the specific facts of the plaintiff” in the new case, the NCAA said in a statement. “However, it appears that many of the allegations are patterned after litigation filed by this lawyer in other cases.”

Berman said this new suit covers both the transfer rules and the scholarship limits in order to preserve claims made in the case that centers on the scholarship limits, which was filed in 2012.

“People keep raising issues with us,” Berman said, “and we will keep challenging the NCAA’s rules until they operate in compliance with antitrust laws.”