As Wisconsin football head coach Luke Fickell is facing pressure to perform well in 2025, it certainly isn’t helping that his program is involved with two lawsuits.
The University sued the Miami Hurricanes last month over alleged tampering with football recruit Xavier Lucas. Wisconsin cornerback Nyzier Fourqurean filed a complaint and request for temporary injunction Jan. 29 against the NCAA for enforcing the Five-Year Rule and preventing him from competing in a fifth season.
When Judge William M. Conley granted the injunction Feb. 6, he allowed the two seasons of division II football Fourquerean played at Grand Valley State not to count against the cornerback’s division I eligibility.
But the Badgers suffered a blow Wednesday as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned the initial decision from the U.S. District Court for Western District of Wisconsin in a 2-1 ruling. Meaning Fourqurean — an anticipated starter — is no longer eligible to play this fall.
“The Five-Year-Rule is really a misnomer in this case, where defendant is not claiming plaintiff’s additional year of eligibility violates the Five-Year Rule but rather a subpart of that rule, limiting student-athletes to ‘four seasons of intercollegiate competition in any one sport,’” it was noted in the initial complaint.
This is a notable legal victory for the NCAA, who initially won 20 of 23 recent eligibility injunction cases brought by athletes.
“As a procompetitive justification for this constraint, the NCAA submits that its Five-Year Rule preserves differentiation between collegiate and professional football by linking eligibility to an athlete’s academic progression,” reads part of the appellate decision.
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The league argued granting Fourqurean an injunction could continue to blur the line between student and professional athletes, damaging the integrity of collegiate sports. The new ruling will allow Fourqurean to continue challenging the ruling in the lower court.
Between Lucas’s transfer to Miami and Fourqurean’s ineligibility, Wisconsin lost two top cornerbacks and now have a hole on the boundary side. The Badgers made offseason additions of transfers D’Yoni Hill (Miami) and Geimere Latimer (Jacksonville State) to the roster, but Fickell still has a lot of work cut out for him.