Tennessee QB Joey Aguilar has become the latest player to take legal action against the NCAA in an attempt to play another season of college football.
Aguilar filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on Monday in Knox County (Tennessee) Chancery Court for a seventh season of eligibility. Aguilar, a California native, played just one season with the Volunteers after transferring from UCLA and Appalachian State.
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The QB is officially out of eligibility and currently unable to return for the 2026 season. In his complaint, Aguilar says “the NCAA generally lets athletes play four full seasons, and Aguilar has played only three; but the NCAA arbitrarily counts the years he played in junior college at a non-NCAA school, as years he played for the NCAA. The NCAA refuses to give Aguilar one more year of eligibility, even though it gave all former JUCO players that relief last year after it lost a similar case against Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt’s starting quarterback.”
Pavia was able to play in 2025 after he gained an additional year of eligibility from the NCAA to make up for his time at a junior college. Last season was his sixth in college football as he started his junior college career in 2020.
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Aguilar’s college career started a year before. He redshirted for a season at Community College of San Francisco in 2019 before the school’s 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He then played two seasons at Diablo Valley Community College before transferring to Appalachian State for two seasons.
After the 2024 season, Aguilar transferred to UCLA and was set to compete to be the Bruins’ starting QB. However, Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava transferred to UCLA during the spring and Aguilar essentially traded places with the former Vols QB.
Aguilar’s extra season of college football makes his case not directly comparable to Pavia’s. The NCAA granted players an extra season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and Pavia played five seasons in five years from 2025 before exhausting his eligibility.
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Aguilar has also played five seasons in five years from 2021 through 2025 and he’s currently asking for a sixth, mainly because two of those three seasons came in junior college. One of Pavia’s four seasons in that span came at a juco.
Quite frankly, Tennessee needs Aguilar back in the fold for the 2026 season. He said in his filing that he has a roster spot available to him for next season and the Vols would be silly not to take him back. The school courted numerous quarterbacks in the transfer portal with Aguilar’s eligibility officially over but struck out. An Aguilar return would significantly boost Tennessee’s chances of being competitive in the SEC next season.
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