KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia successfully obtained an injunction that allows him to play an additional season of college football next fall after a federal judge concluded that his time spent at a junior college should not count against his eligibility.
Meanwhile, approximately 180 miles away at the University of Tennessee, former junior college baseball player Alberto Osuna is pursuing a similar path. He is taking his case to federal court in hopes of securing eligibility to play for Tennessee, the reigning national champion, this season. Osuna previously played at Walters State Community College during the 2021 season before transferring to North Carolina, where he has been for the past three years. He contends that his year at Walters State should not impact his Division I eligibility.
“The case of Pavia aligns perfectly with Osuna’s situation, and just as with Pavia, Osuna deserves to receive injunctive relief,” stated Chad Hatmaker, Osuna’s attorney, in a complaint filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. After the last season at North Carolina, Osuna assumed he had exhausted his Division I eligibility and subsequently transferred to the Division II program at Tampa, where he was a member of the team during the previous fall season.
Pavia, who guided the New Mexico Military Institute to a junior-college national championship in 2021, played for New Mexico State during the 2022-2023 season before making the move to Vanderbilt. Back in December, he won an injunction permitting him to continue his Vanderbilt career through the 2025 season. Following this legal victory, Osuna became optimistic about regaining a year of Division I eligibility, leading him to enter the transfer portal, which resulted in him joining Tennessee. Osuna mentioned that Tennessee submitted a waiver request on his behalf on February 3, but the NCAA has yet to provide a ruling.
Tennessee is set to kick off its season this Friday by hosting Hofstra. Due to the pressing nature of Osuna’s circumstances, Hatmaker reiterated that his client could not afford to wait indefinitely for the NCAA’s decision on the waiver request.
The NCAA has appealed the ruling in Pavia’s case; however, they provided a waiver that allows athletes in comparable scenarios to continue competing in the 2025-26 season. The NCAA specified that this waiver applies to athletes who have attended and competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years, ensuring they can compete in 2025-26 as long as they would have otherwise used their final season during the 2024-25 academic year while fulfilling all other eligibility criteria, including progress towards their degrees and adhering to the five-year eligibility limit.
Hatmaker criticized this waiver as ineffective for Osuna, explaining that baseball is a spring sport, and the forthcoming season will not take place within the 2025-26 academic year. “This arbitrary distinction is detrimental to Osuna and reflects yet again the NCAA’s unlawful constraints on the market for Division I athletics,” Hatmaker’s complaint asserted.
The crux of the argument in Pavia’s case and subsequently in Osuna’s is that the NCAA’s bylaws infringe upon the Sherman Act by hampering the free market. This argument is built on the premise that by tallying the time spent at junior colleges against athletes’ Division I eligibility, it restricts those players from capitalizing on potential profit opportunities linked to their name, image, and likeness, which they would have been entitled to had they played a full four years at a Division I institution.
Osuna’s stats from his time at North Carolina reflect his performance well: he posted a .259 batting average with a .359 on-base percentage, hitting 45 home runs and driving in 140 runs over 177 career games. Additionally, he registered a .281 batting average, a .376 on-base percentage, with 14 home runs and 56 RBIs during 62 games in his final season, contributing to the team’s journey to the College World Series.
