Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr.’s announcement Tuesday night that he plans to enter the NCAA transfer portal sent shockwaves through college sports.
Four days earlier, he’d signed a contract to return to Washington, which was set to pay him in the mid-$4 million range and put him near the top the market for college football. Washington continues to pursue legal action, per sources, to enforce the contract.
Williams’ declaration online that he is leaving quickly became a touchstone for a sport and system where there’s already significant skepticism over the viability of signed contracts.
What happens next with Williams will speak volumes about the future of college football and the enforceability of contracts, providing a bellwether for this new era of college sports.
“This is a very bright line,” a high-ranking college official said. “Are we going to respect each other’s contracts? This is a very simple thing. If we can’t protect this, nothing else matters.”
If Williams follows through on his desire to leave Washington — LSU is the presumptive favorite for his services, but others are expected to be involved as well — his case will be a litmus test for the rules of a new era. And it will likely end up in court.
The situation can be boiled down to a simple point that has been a running issue and an embarrassment for college sports: Can contracts be enforced?
“This situation is a product of 2026 football,” a prominent athletic director told ESPN. “Where the story ends, this is one of the big moments in college football — or really, college sports — and what we do next.”
When initially contacted, Demond Williams Sr. — the quarterback’s father — declined to comment.
If Williams attempts to leave for LSU or another school, it is likely to become a bigger saga than former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava’s jump from Tennessee to UCLA last year.
It’s also a potentially much higher-profile version of the legal fallout — still unresolved — from the departure last fall of Wisconsin defensive back Xavier Lucas to Miami.
Wisconsin sued Miami claiming the school committed tortious interference by knowingly compelling a player to break the terms of his deal with the Badgers.
Williams is a household name in the Big Ten and among college sports fans, as he threw for 3,065 yards and 25 touchdowns this season. He also ran for 611 yards and six touchdowns. Williams was originally committed to coach Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss in 2023 before flipping to Jedd Fisch and Arizona. He followed Fisch to Washington when Fisch took the head coaching job there in 2024.
“This wouldn’t happen in professional sports,” another high-ranking college official said. “Things like this seem to show that people think that they can do anything.”
The college sports world is watching intently. One general manager at a top program told ESPN on Wednesday: “It’s extremely embarrassing the system allows this. There’s no stability at all. How are people sitting around watching everything crumble? What are the leaders doing? What are the commissioners doing? How do we not get everyone in a room and not leave until there’s a solution.”
One veteran head coach added with a chuckle on the lack of oversight: “I don’t even know who we turn complaints in to.”
Washington sources say the university is prepared to pursue all legal avenues to enforce Williams’ contract. The Big Ten has also been engaged on the issue, and the league has been vocal in the past about how crucial it is that “agreed-to obligations be respected, honored and enforced.” Williams used a traditional agency to complete his deal. Sources said there had been outreach for more than two weeks from people outside the agency to schools. The agency that did his deal was blindsided by Williams’ portal entry.
Per sources, one person who has contacted schools about Williams is Cordell Landers, who generally refers to himself as an adviser and loomed as one of the central figures in Iamaleava’s departure from Tennessee. Landers denied to ESPN that he is involved with Williams.
ESPN obtained some details of Williams’ Washington contract Wednesday. There are two items that loom large. The deal includes a buyout to leave that is at the “sole discretion” of Washington. The contract also states that “the institution is not obligated to enter the Student-Athlete into the transfer portal or otherwise assist or facilitate the Student-Athlete’s transfer to another college or university.”
Lucas’ move to Miami shows that the portal is not a necessity for players to move, but it is another complicating factor.
Williams’ case speaks to a larger issue in which contracts around the sport — binding schools to leagues, coaches to schools and players to programs — are largely being ignored.
The situation illuminates the system’s flaws, including not having any single entity in charge of the inter-workings of contracts in a multibillion-dollar business. The Williams contract issue doesn’t fall under the purview of the new College Sports Commission, which handles third-party name, image and likeness deals to meet legal settlement rules, revenue sharing from schools in relation to the cap and roster limits.
The NCAA deals with tampering, which could be at play. Tampering, however, has become so mainstream in college athletics that it’s nearly impossible to enforce. Modern legalities also complicate oversight, as a federal judge’s ruling in Tennessee in February 2024 made the NCAA’s role in enforcing tampering more challenging.
The cries for new rules are even more complicated. The lawsuit that led to that legal ruling was filed Jan. 31, one day after Tennessee chancellor Donde Plowman revealed in a letter to the NCAA that the school’s athletic department was being investigated.
While there are calls for reform, there is inherent resistance whenever rules land on a school’s doorstep.
Suddenly, Williams’ situation has emerged as a flashpoint for a faulty system.
“This is a very important moment in our space,” one high-ranking official said, “about how we’re going to behave.”
ESPN’s Max Olson contributed to this report.
