The NCAA won one.

Knox County Chancellor Christopher Heagerty said no to Joey Aguilar’s legal plea for another season as Tennessee’s quarterback.

The Friday denial of a preliminary injunction against the NCAA preserves, for now, its long-standing rule that junior college athletics count as part of the five-year limitation on major college competition.

Official response: “The NCAA is thankful for the judge’s decision, which demonstrates the court’s consideration of eligibility standards and protecting access to the collegiate experience for current and future student-athletes.”

My response: The ruling cost Joey “irreparable harm.” Not being eligible to play this fall will cost a couple or three million dollars and a chance to improve his skills and future in football. It may cost the Vols a game or two. We’ll see.

I thought the lawsuit was asking a lot. An injunction would have opened a large can of worms and inspired many new court challenges. I still haven’t decided whether the JUCO rule is fair for athletes or even legal. Junior colleges are not part of the NCAA.

From another perspective, the chancellor’s decision was exciting for the highly regarded young quarterbacks. The door is now wide open.

Joey Aguilar has options. He can appeal the court order. Alas, that is typically a long, drawn-out process and the odds of winning are poor. He can hope a National Football League team looks closely at his 2025 video and sees how he could help win games. He has been invited to the pro scouting combine next weekend in Indianapolis.

I do believe Joey can become a graduate assistant coach and find out whether he’d like coaching as a career. I’m almost certain he can secure employment in the real world. He is 24. He has a degree, experience, personality, leadership ability and friends (some in high places).

Tennessee football has options. The March 16 start of spring practice can be the beginning of a three-man tournament for the vacant quarterback job. Competitors will be sophomore George MacIntyre, freshman Faizon Brandon and Colorado transfer Ryan Staub.

Handicapping that race: MacIntyre knows a lot more about Josh Heupel’s offense, Staub has more experience and Brandon probably has the most physical ability.

The betting line on Heagerty’s eventual decision looked like 60-40 Joey in the beginning. The chancellor said one of the reasons he granted the temporary restraining order was “the plaintiff has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his claim that the NCAA’s “JUCO rule” violated the Tennessee Trade Practices Act.”

At the injunction hearing a week ago, some questions were hard to answer. Aguilar’s attorney, Cam Norris, said this was a narrow case that did not affect others. The judge’s response implied, if that was fact, maybe it weakened the argument that the NCAA was affecting Tennessee trade or commerce to a substantial degree.

Heagerty seemed to believe other athletes would be affected. He saw the potential for “sweeping implications and significant ambiguity and uncertainty regarding the eligibility rules of the NCAA.”

The judge raised a question about interstate commerce. He was talking about the impact of Aguilar’s eligibility based on a Tennessee law and playing games in other states where the laws are different.

“Do we take our law with us? Do we enforce it out there?”

Attorney Taylor Askew, a UT law school graduate, was paid to strike an emotional blow on behalf of the NCAA. I thought it was telling.

“Tennessee is better than this. We don’t have to go to court to get our guy back. We don’t have to play somebody who is ineligible under the rules to win games. We don’t do that at Tennessee.”

After all that was said at the hearing, I thought the odds for the good guy dropped below 50-50. A prominent Knoxville attorney not involved in the case still thought the ruling would favor Aguilar.

It didn’t. It may or may not have been close.

Marvin West welcomes comments or questions from readers. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com

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