Indiana appears to have a major eligibility question in their defensive backfield.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich is reporting safety Louis Moore is suing the NCAA in order to be eligible to play the 2025 season. The Daily Hoosier can confirm the report via a source.
“Louis Moore, a 24-year-old safety who has started games at both Ole Miss and Indiana, is suing the NCAA for another year of eligibility so he can finish his playing career with the Hoosiers, arguing that his time at Navarro Junior college in Texas should not count against him,” Dinich wrote. He cited the potential losses in earnings around $400k from NIL deals. Moore is currently enrolled at IU and trying to attend practice on Aug. 25. He and his attorneys cited legal precedent with Vandy QB Diego Pavia case.”
The first day of the fall semester at IU Bloomington is Aug. 25.
Moore is a likely starter at free safety for IU if he is able to play. If not, Byron Baldwin, Bryson Bonds and Devan Boykin would all seemingly be in contention for snaps at that spot. Sources told TDH in the spring Indiana has known about this potential scenario — and no doubt has a backup plan.
Moore has been in college football for five seasons with no redshirt years, including two in junior college. He applied for an eligibility waiver after transferring to IU this winter.
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors in December approved a blanket waiver granting an additional year of eligibility to former junior college transfers in similar positions to Pavia.
According to an NCAA memo, the waiver extends an extra year of eligibility in 2025-26 to athletes who previously “competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years” and otherwise would have exhausted their NCAA eligibility following the 2024-25 season.
Moore spent the 2024 campaign at Ole Miss, where he played 297 snaps in 10 games at free safety. He recorded 33 tackles including two for a loss and a half sack. He dealt with an injury for much of the season.
In 2023 with IU, Moore appeared in all 12 games with ten starts. He posted 83 tackles, three interceptions, for pass break-ups and three forced fumbles. He returned one of his interceptions for a touchdown.
He appeared in all 12 games for IU in 2022 in a reserve role and posted nine tackles to go with a forced fumble.
Prior to transferring to IU ahead of the 2022 season, played wide receiver and defensive back at Navarro C.C. The Mesquite, Texas product had 48 receptions for 713 yards and five touchdowns over two seasons (2020 and 2021) at Navarro. The 2020 season did not count as a year of eligibility due to the pandemic for NCAA athletes.
With the 2020 pandemic and 2025 junior college blanket waivers, it’s unclear why Moore would be ineligible to play unless the NCAA’s 2020 ruling is being interpreted as not applying to junior college players.
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