Safety Jett Elad is looking to play football for his fourth university and the chance to land a $500,000 NIL deal. In order to do that, he is taking the NCAA to court.
Elad—who previously played at Ohio University, Garden City Community College in Kansas and UNLV—filed a complaint in a New Jersey federal district court on Thursday, demanding an injunction that would block the NCAA from enforcing a rule that bars his eligibility. Elad hopes to join the Scarlet Knights when spring practices begin Tuesday.
Elad, who turns 24 next month, joins a growing list of seasoned college athletes who litigate their exhaustion of NCAA eligibility. These cases have led to conflicting outcomes, with some athletes gaining injunctions and others coming up short.
At the core of these cases are NCAA eligibility rules limiting an athlete’s participation in sports to five calendar years from when the athlete begins studying at a college and four seasons of intercollegiate competition (including junior college competition) in any one sport. The players argue these rules run afoul of antitrust law. As the players see it, competing businesses—NCAA member schools and conferences—have joined hands to unreasonably deny athletes’ NIL opportunities and, if the House settlement is approved, revenue sharing opportunities, too.
Some of the judges have agreed with the players, reasoning that in the modern world of college sports, college athletes are economic actors whose chance to play—and be paid—is within the realm of antitrust law. Others disagree; they regard eligibility rules as fundamentally non-commercial in nature, since those rules are tied to the education of college students and enrollment at a university. The possibility of an NIL-seeking athlete trying to stay enrolled at a university for many years, using a roster spot that would otherwise go to a younger player, has struck some as problematic and at odds with higher education goals.
Elad, who grew up in Canada, graduated from Saint Ignatius High School (Ohio) in 2019 and was a three-star recruit. He matriculated to Ohio University and redshirted his freshman year, meaning 2019 counted towards his five years but didn’t count as one of his four seasons.
Elad played for the Bobcats in 2020, but his team only played three games due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the NCAA granted a waiver so that year didn’t count for eligibility purposes. After playing in nine games for the Bobcats in 2021, Elad transferred to Garden City Junior College in Garden City, Kan., for the 2022 season, meaning he played junior college football that season. He then transferred to UNLV for his 2023 and 2024 seasons, where he excelled. Elad was a finalist for the Jon Cornish trophy, which recognizes the top Canadian in NCAA football, and was honorable mention for the All-Mountain West Team. In sum, Elad played four seasons (2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024) in five years (2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024).
Late last year, Elad believed he might gain a chance to play beyond the expiration of his NCAA eligibility. In the wake of a judge granting a preliminary injunction to allow Vanderbilt quarterback and former junior college transfer Diego Pavia to play in fall 2025, the NCAA granted a waiver to allow similarly situated former JUCO players to play a fourth year of D-I in fall 2025 or spring 2026. Elad’s situation to some degree resembles that of Pavia, though Pavia did not redshirt, and he played three D-I seasons in three years rather than three D-I seasons in four years.
Elad entered the transfer portal a few months ago and agreed to join Rutgers; by playing for Rutgers, he says he’d land a NIL deal that is worth about $500,000—“a life-altering source of revenue for [Elad] and his family,” according to the complaint, which is authored by Kevin H. Marino and other attorneys from Marino, Tortorella & Boyle.
Rutgers petitioned the NCAA to waive enforcement of the five-year rule, but the complaint says the NCAA denied the request. Rutgers has appealed the NCAA’s decision and the appeal is pending.
Elad worries that if he doesn’t join spring practices, Rutgers will “replace him on the roster with another player and he will lose the opportunity to play for Rutgers next season.” Spring practices, the complaint details, are “are critical to both the team and Elad, as they would facilitate his integration into the team’s overall strategy and defensive play and enable Elad to develop a rapport with the Rutgers coaching staff and teammates.”
U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, who graduated from Rutgers Law School, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Justin T. Quinn have been assigned to preside over Elad v. NCAA. Quraishi has scheduled a hearing for April 3 at a federal courthouse in Trenton, N.J. Attorneys for the NCAA will respond to Elad’s filing.
In a statement to Sportico, an NCAA spokesperson said the association “stands by its eligibility rules, including the five-year rule, which enable student-athletes and schools to have fair competition and ensure broad access to the unique and life-changing opportunity to be a student-athlete.” The spokesperson added, “the NCAA is making changes to modernize college sports but attempts to alter the enforcement of foundational eligibility rules—approved and supported by membership leaders—make a shifting environment even more unsettled.”
These eligibility cases are playing out while the NCAA has urged Congress to step in. One possible legislative reform would be an antitrust exemption for eligibility-related cases, meaning colleges and conferences could set what they regard as sensible eligibility restrictions for blending academic and athletic goals without facing continuous antitrust lawsuits.
