Utah quarterback Cam Rising is about to enter his seventh season of college football. And, if he chooses, the 2024 season doesn’t have to be his last.
Rising could play at Utah for an eighth and final season in 2025 due to a proposed settlement agreement of a lawsuit between the NCAA and the United States Justice Department that, in part, restores one year of college eligibility to players required to sit out a season due to the Transfer Eligibility Rule during or since the 2019-20 academic year.
Rising transferred to Utah from Texas in 2019 and redshirted that year.
Rising, 25, and every other Division I athlete already had an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic halting sports in 2020. The NCAA granted everyone one more year, and many around the country took advantage of it, including Rising.
The Justice Department’s antitrust division joined a lawsuit in January and alleged the transfer rule “limited competition for college athletes and restricted their ability to transfer to colleges and universities that provided better educational and athletic opportunities for them.” The lawsuit also included 10 states and the District of Columbia.
The proposed settlement would also force the NCAA to no longer enforce its Transfer Eligibility Rule or any similar rule “requiring a Division I student-athlete to maintain a period of residence or otherwise refrain from competition solely because of a transfer between NCAA member institutions.”
Part of the reason Rising opted to play in 2024 was because of an injury that kept him out of the entire 2023 season. He took a medical redshirt.