Georgia sues Missouri edge rusher Damon Wilson for nearly $400K over NIL contract he signed with Bulldogs

Georgia is attempting to get edge rusher Damon Wilson to pony up after his transfer to Missouri.

The school’s athletic association has filed a lawsuit against Wilson saying he owes $390,000 from the NIL contract he signed with the school’s collective in December 2024 ahead of Georgia’s College Football Playoff loss to Notre Dame. Wilson transferred after the 2024 season to Missouri and received one payment of $30,000.

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Wilson, a junior, led Missouri with nine sacks and 9.5 tackles for loss this season. He had three sacks and 5.5 tackles for loss as a sophomore for the Bulldogs in 2024.

Georgia is claiming Wilson owes the balance of the base pay the contract stipulated he’d be paid via a liquidated damages claim. According to ESPN, Wilson’s deal with Classic City Collective was for $500,000 spread out over 14 monthly payments with two post-transfer portal bonuses of $40,000 and that he’d owe what was still set to be paid out to him if he left the team.

From ESPN:

“When the University of Georgia Athletic Association enters binding agreements with student-athletes, we honor our commitments and expect student-athletes to do the same,” athletics spokesperson Steven Drummond said in a statement to ESPN.

Georgia is not the first school to file a suit over NIL payments to a player who transferred. But the hard-line tactic is noteworthy, and may ultimately not work out in Georgia’s favor.

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Schools typically do not ask coaches to pay out the balance of their contracts when leaving for another job. For example, Lane Kiffin did not have to pay Ole Miss what the school was scheduled to pay him over the rest of his deal with the school when he left for LSU. Instead, LSU paid Ole Miss $3 million for Kiffin to get out of his contract.

That situation happens all the time when coaches leave for new jobs. Their buyouts to get out of their contracts are far smaller than the buyouts schools owe when a coach is fired without cause.

And coaches are employees. Schools have long resisted that players be classified as employees and continue to do so even as the revenue-sharing era begins. The NCAA and its member schools have long clung to amateurism and that antiquated idea is why it took so long for players to get paid in the first place.