For USC, the season hasn’t even kicked off yet and they’ve already taken a hit in the trenches. On Monday afternoon in Santa Ana, a federal judge slammed the door on DJ Wingfield’s shot at suiting up this fall. The offensive lineman lost his antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA in a hearing that barely lasted longer than a coffee break — 16 minutes to be exact. Just like that, Wingfield’s college eligibility is gone, and so is his $210,000 NIL deal with USC. Brutal.

Judge James V. Selna didn’t flinch. The courtroom minutes spelled it out plain: compensation rules might get tangled up with antitrust law, but eligibility rules? Nope. Those don’t count. Which means Wingfield’s clock has officially run out under the NCAA’s five‑year rule. That’s a harsh blow for a 6‑foot‑3, 310‑pound guard who’s bounced from El Camino College to New Mexico, then Purdue, and finally to USC. After fighting through a redshirt, an injury, and transfers, this was supposed to be his moment. Instead, he’s sidelined by paperwork.

On August 19th, the Trojans’ head coach Lincoln Riley broke the silence on the Wingfield-NCAA situation: “Disappointed just for him. I know I spoke a lot on it previously. I don’t know that I have a whole lot to add… I’m really disappointed for him. It’s a very, very unique situation in so many ways. We’ve grown to obviously been around him a lot. Love the kid and just really disappointed for him.” According to Riley, moving on is the only option.

USC’s been practicing without Wingfield while the legal dust settled, so Riley and his staff have already been tinkering with the lineups. “Whether it’s a situation like this, or somebody getting hurt, that’s just part of the game, and the team’s ability to respond to that is just part of the path.” In other words, next man up.

So who’s filling Wingfield’s spot at left guard? That’s where it gets interesting. Riley name‑dropped a few candidates: “I think Justin [Tauanuu] certainly figures into it prominently, and we’ve got a few guys that can move around. Tobias [Raymond] has a lot of position flex. J’Onre Reed has a lot of position flex. Kaylon Miller has some position flex. Micah Banuelos coming along, [Hayden] Treter coming along is certainly really important.” There’s also talk of sliding Raymond around if depth gets shaky, and don’t forget the young tackles who are suddenly under pressure to grow up fast.

When asked about the lesson from DJ’s ordeal, Lincoln kept it blunt: “I don’t know if I have lessons right now. It’s pretty fresh news honestly. I don’t know that I’ve processed it. We’ll write a book about it someday.” Losing a veteran like Wingfield stings, especially with USC’s offense built around keeping quarterbacks clean and moving the chains. But this is college football. Weird eligibility rulings, injuries, lawsuits — chaos is baked into the cake. Riley’s job is to turn that chaos into stability. And if history’s any guide, he’ll find his five men. Just not the five he thought he’d have.

More about DJ Wingfield—NCAA tea

The DJ Wingfield saga started cooking in late July, and now it’s finally boiled over. Wingfield and his attorney, JaQay Carlyle, tried to take the NCAA to task, filing a legal complaint that claimed he had one more year of eligibility tucked in his back pocket thanks to a waiver. The thing is, Carlyle ghosted reporters when they came knocking for a comment, so all the noise ended up bouncing back on Wingfield.

And he wasn’t fighting solo either. UCLA’s Kaedin Robinson and San Diego’s Jagger Giles jumped in the same legal pool, their cases lined up like a group project nobody asked for. The backdrop? That Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia move back in December. The SEC QB sued the NCAA, argued that counting JUCO seasons was straight-up antitrust nonsense, and walked out with an injunction to keep slinging passes another year. That win forced the NCAA’s hand—Board of Directors signed off on a fresh waiver on December 23 for players in the same boat.

“It’s a tough situation, but we’ve got a lot of guys that can play a lot of positions,” lineman Tobias Raymond said, giving the classic next-man-up speech. And he might not be lying—Raymond’s got game, having started the Las Vegas Bowl and learned how much faster life gets on the interior. Guards don’t get grace periods; they get fists in their chest on the first step. Missouri State’s waiting on August 30. That clock doesn’t stop just because the NCAA said no.