Quarterback Joey Aguilar has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in Knox County Chancery Court with the desire of playing a second season for the Tennessee Volunteers.
Aguilar’s singular lawsuit seeks to alter the existing rules to where seasons spent in junior college will no longer count towards a player’s eligibility and that only seasons spent at NCAA institutions will count. The 6-foot-3, 225-pounder from Antioch, California, led the Vols to an 8-5 record this past fall, which included the program’s first win at Florida since 2003.
“After a breakout season as the Volunteers’ quarterback in 2025, the NCAA is blocking Aguilar from playing a fourth year of Division I football — depriving Tennessee of a gifted quarterback and robbing Aguilar of millions in compensation,” Aguilar’s eligibility lawsuit states.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel was the first to report Aguilar’s filing.
Aguilar is a 2019 graduate of Freedom High School in Oakley, California, who began his college career at City College of San Francisco, where he never took a snap. He redshirted in 2019, and the 2020 junior-college season across the country was canceled due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.