When DJ Wingfield picked USC in the transfer portal last January, it seemed like an ideal one-year arrangement for both parties. The Trojans desperately needed experience on the interior of their already thin offensive line. Wingfield — after two seasons at a junior college, one at New Mexico and another spent at Purdue — was seeking to raise his profile in his final season of eligibility.
USC offered him a clear path to playing time at left guard, as well as a $210,000 payday for his name, image and likeness. He just needed the NCAA to approve a waiver for him to play another season.
Neither Wingfield nor USC figured that would be a problem at the time. But the NCAA denied Wingfield’s initial request for a waiver in late March, then later denied his appeal.
So, with fall camp set to open this week, Wingfield took the only route remaining for him to play at USC: He filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, seeking injunctive relief in order to play for USC.
Wingfield is seeking to challenge the lawfulness of the NCAA’s “Five-Year Rule”, which contends that players are eligible to play four seasons of competition across five years. Both USC and Wingfield believed, according to the complaint, that his waiver would be approved, considering recent rulings in the cases of Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia and Rutgers’ Jett Elad, each of whom won the right in court to play an additional season.
But the waiver was denied, robbing Wingfield, he claims, of what could have been a “once-in-a-lifetime” NIL payday as well as an opportunity to “enhance his career and reputation” by playing at USC.
“The effect of the NCAA’s anticompetitive conduct will be to penalize Wingfield for having attended a junior college and for the disruptions caused by the pandemic,” the complaint reads. “The NCAA’s anticompetitive conduct, coupled with its unreasonable denial of Wingfield’s meritorious request for a waiver, thus threatens him with immediate irreparable harm.”
Wingfield’s collegiate career began in 2019 at El Camino College, a junior college in Torrance. He left El Camino during the 2020 season because of the pandemic, as Wingfield was tasked with taking care of his mother.
He played at El Camino in 2021 before transferring to New Mexico in the spring of 2022. Before completing a single game with the Lobos, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee, ending his season. He returned to play in nine games in 2023 before entering the transfer portal.
Wingfield transferred to Purdue where he earned a starting job in 2024, five years after he first started his college football career.
Still, he figured the NCAA would look past that timeline, given his circumstances and the cascade of legal challenges claiming that the NCAA is violating antitrust laws by limiting athletes’ eligibility.
Now that decision — and Wingfield’s college football future — is in the hands of a federal judge.
Whatever that judge decides could have an adverse affect on the Trojans’ offense this season. Without Wingfield, USC would be perilously thin up front.
That doesn’t seem to be a concern of Trojans offensive line coach Zach Hanson, who reiterated that the entire starting line was “open-ended” as of the start of camp.
But considering the lack of depth up front, USC may not have many proven options if Wingfield is unable to secure a waiver.
The most likely fix would be to slide projected right tackle Tobias Raymond to guard, while sophomore Justin Tauanuu steps in as the starting right tackle. The two tackles have one start between them.
“I’m comfortable playing wherever coach is comfortable with me playing,” Raymond said Monday. “I’ll do whatever the team needs.”
Coach Lincoln Riley acknowledged that Raymond offers that flexibility to kick inside, but moving him, he said, would then make tackle the team’s most at-risk position.
Could another, unproven option emerge at guard? Riley mentioned both sophomore Micah Banuelos and Kaylon Miller, a walk-on, as possible options.
The rest of the line appears mostly set, with Elijah Paige at left tackle, transfer J’Onre Reed at center and Alani Noa at guard. Though, whether Wingfield returns or other hurdles emerge, Reed knows nothing is guaranteed.
“We’re not looking towards that,” Reed said. “We’re not thinking that way. I’ve been interchangeable, out with different guys rotating. It was never just one set.”
