Cortez Braham Jr., who spent last season on the Nevada football team, is suing the NCAA for a seventh year of college eligibility.

A 6-foot-2, 201-pound wide receiver, Braham was among a wave of former junior-college players who starred for the Wolf Pack last season and were seemingly out of eligibility but entered the transfer portal this offseason. But Braham has not committed to a new school as he seeks an additional year of eligibility, which he claims could net him up to $500,000 in name, image and likeness money.

The NCAA has faced a number of lawsuits from athletes with antitrust claims who argue they should not be limited by the NCAA’s eligibility clock, which includes four years of active playing time over a five-season period. The NCAA’s rules have held seasons played at the junior-college level count against four years of NCAA eligibility, although Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who at one time was committed to Nevada, received an injunction last December after he argued his JuCo years should not count against his NCAA clock. The NCAA has appealed the court ruling favoring Pavia but granted junior-college athletes a temporary additional year of eligibility in 2025-26.

Many Nevada Wolf Pack athletes have or plan to take advantage of that ruling, which apparently does not apply to Braham because his five-year clock has expired. Braham spent three seasons at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College from 2019-21 and two at West Virginia from 2022-23 before arriving at Nevada last season. Braham redshirted at West Virginia in 2023 after playing in three games and 2020 did not count against eligibility due to COVID-19’s impact, the latter making him eligible for the Wolf Pack last season as his NCAA clock was extended to six years. Braham also was committed to Buffalo at one point but did not play for the Bulls.

Braham played three seasons at Hutchinson, two at West Virginia and one at Nevada, so he is seeking a seventh active season over a seven-year period. The Baltimore, Md., native initially intended to transfer to West Virginia for the 2021 season but had a GPA of 2.47, below the minimum requirement of 2.5 for a JuCo-to-FBS transfer. The lawsuit argues that is an unfair standard given given the academic requirement to transfer from one four-year school to another within the NCAA is a 2.00 GPA. Braham raised his GPA enough before the 2022 season to transfer to West Virginia where he played sparingly that season before having a career year at Nevada in 2024.

Braham started all 13 games for Nevada last season and was named All-Mountain West honorable mention after finishing second on the team in receptions (56), receiving yards (724) and touchdown catches (four). He took part in Nevada’s senior day ceremonies and believed his career to be over prior to Pavia’s lawsuit.

Braham’s lawsuit alleges Nevada, through its compliance staff, has repeatedly refused to file a “a waiver request so that the NCAA can exercise its discretion to waive the Five-Year rule and the JUCO transfer GPA requirement as it applies to Braham.” The lawsuit says the university told Braham he should “find a lawyer and file a lawsuit against the NCAA instead of looking to the school for help” and that litigation was the only path available for Braham’s quest for an additional year of eligibility in 2025. NCAA rule states any school Braham could transfer to would be eligible to file a waiver on his behalf.

The lawsuit argues Braham not being granted an additional year of eligibility would “permanently deprive him of a once-in-a-lifetime NIL contract opportunity worth nearly $500,000 and the opportunity to enhance his career and reputation by playing another year of Division I football. Additionally, this will harm Braham’s lifetime of hard work in the classroom and on the football field that he has pursued to even be considered for these opportunities. The NCAA’s anti-competitive conduct, coupled with his former university affiliation’s unreasonable denial of Braham’s ability to request a specific NCAA waiver, is resulting in irreversible damage.”

At least two Nevada transfers who were seniors last season got an additional year of eligibility due to Pavia’s injunction and have signed with power-conference schools this offseason, those being cornerbacks Michael Coats Jr. (West Virginia) and Chad Brown (Purdue). It is unknown if they received NCAA waiver requests from Nevada as Coats is entering his sixth college season and Brown his seventh, meaning they have seemingly navigated around the NCAA’s five-year eligibility window to play in 2025.

If Braham was granted an additional year of college eligibility, that would not come at Nevada as Braham entered the transfer portal and has reportedly taken recruiting visits or planned visits with Kentucky, Kansas, Memphis and Arkansas. He remains unsigned and did not participate in any school’s spring camp.

The NCAA and junior-college system are governed by separate entities with athletes arguing their time in the National Junior College Athletic Association should not count against their eligibility in the NCAA. The lawsuit argues NCAA rules do not prohibit former pro athletes from profiting from NIL in Division I football, citing Chris Weinke’s time as a Heisman Trophy-winning Florida State quarterback after a six-year professional baseball career, saying holding junior-college players to a higher standard in eligibility considerations is unfair.

The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday and first reported by Boise State assistant professor Sam C. Ehrlich, was drafted by Reno-based attorney Brandon D. Wright as well as Gregg E. Clifton, from Phoenix. Braham is seeking a court declaration and an injunction. Presiding over Cortez vs. NCAA is U.S. District Judge Miranda M. Du and U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig S. Denney of the Nevada federal district court.

You can read the entire lawsuit below.

Hometown: Merrimac, Massachusetts

Previous School: University of New Hampshire 

 

Before Maryland: Aine Reade joins the GymTerps as a freshman transfer from the University of New Hampshire. Reade made an immediate mark in her debut season, qualifying as an individual for floor at the 2025 NCAA Regionals and earning EAGL Rookie of the Week honors eight times. She was named to the EAGL Championships All-Tournament First Team for vault, bars, floor, and all-around, and secured All-EAGL First Team honors on floor and all-around, as well as Second Team honors on vault and bars. Reade also excelled academically, earning a spot on the EAGL All-Scholastic Team.

Aine Reade:  “I chose Maryland because the moment I stepped on campus, I felt incredibly welcomed by the amazing atmosphere created by the coaches and the team. They truly made me feel at home and like I was already part of the family. Maryland offers so many opportunities and resources that will challenge me to grow and become my best self and that’s how I knew it was the right place for me.”

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The accolades keep rolling in for rising senior Isaac Howard following a historic 2024-25 campaign, who was announced as the recipient of USA Hockey’s Jim Johannson College Player of the Year award on Tuesday. Howard is the fourth Spartan to earn this distinction, following in the footsteps of Jeff Lerg (2007), Ryan Miller (2001), and Mike York (1999). He’ll be officially recognized during the USA Hockey President’s Award Dinner on Friday, June 6 in Denver.

Howard previously became the program’s third all-time recipient of the Hobey Baker Memorial Award after delivering a career-best 26 goals and 52 points across Michigan State’s 37 games. He ranked first nationally in points per game (1.41), was third in goals per game (0.70), and finished No. 23 in assists per game (0.70). In addition to being named a First Team AHCA All-American, Howard earned Big Ten Player of the Year, Big Ten Tournament Most Outstanding Player, and First Team All-B1G.

The Jim Johannson College Player of the Year award was first established in 1994 and recognizes the accomplishments of the top American-born player in NCAA Division I men’s college hockey. In 2019, the award was renamed in honor of Johannson, who won a national championship while playing at the University of Wisconsin and spent two decades as an executive at USA Hockey.

Howard is fresh off a gold medal at the 2025 IIHF Men’s World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden. The Hudson, Wis. native was named to the U.S. Hockey Men’s National Team in April, contributing an assist across four appearances in pool play in addition to an assist in an exhibition against Germany. Alongside Michigan State head coach Adam Nightingale, who served as an assistant coach on Team USA, the pair helped the United States bring home its first gold medal at the World Championships since 1933.

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Copyright 2025 WILX. All rights reserved.

By CLIFF BRUNT

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma could extend its record run of consecutive national titles to five at this year’s Women’s College World Series.

ADRIAN, Mich. – The 2025 Academic All-District Softball Teams, selected by College Sports Communicators (CSC), honor the nation’s top student-athletes for excellence both on the field and in the classroom. This year, five outstanding members of the NCAA Softball program have earned a place on this prestigious list.

To qualify, student-athletes must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.50 or higher, be at least a sophomore in both academic and athletic standing, and participate in at least 90% of their team’s contests or start in 66% of games.

Representing the NCAA Softball team are:

·         Taylor Gerhardt

·         Hailey DeChalk

·         Genna Marasco

·         Abbi Patton

·         Peyton Russell

These honorees now advance to the CSC Academic All-America ballot, where they will be considered for national recognition based on their exemplary academic records and career athletic achievements.

Congratulations to these remarkable student-athletes for their dedication, discipline, and leadership on and off the diamond.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart asserted that some NIL collectives are spending five figures a month to retain the commitments of prospective recruits.

Smart told Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger the cost in some cases is $20,000 monthly. The collectives will request that money back if the recruit winds up signing with another school.

“Teams that are unusually good at recruiting right now are doing it,” the Bulldogs coach said. “Kids are getting money, but if you decommit, you owe that money back. These are high school kids getting money from an entity not affiliated with the university but is a collective of the university.”

Dellenger asked Smart to name the schools to which the collectives he referenced are affiliated. The coach declined to offer specifics but said the programs aren’t SEC members.

This is yet another example of the chaotic landscape that college recruiting has become.

Decomittments have long been part of the process, but now there’s an added cost for collectives that have secured endorsement money for blue-chip recruits. It makes sense for collectives to hedge their bets by paying big sums to players before they arrive and having a mechanism to get that cash back if need be.

The NIL Go clearinghouse will theoretically bring more transparency, with athletes required to report any deals that exceed $600. And yet, Dellenger wrote that “many legal experts believe that the clearinghouse concept will trigger a bevy of legal challenges.”

If fans have learned one thing about college football across multiple generations, it’s that the top schools will always try to get one leg up on the competition. Whatever changes are made to the NIL system, there will be plenty of collectives trying to find loopholes or workarounds in an effort to attract the best talent.