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Lincoln Riley gives in-depth take on DJ Wingfield, frustration with NCAA

The USC Trojans were hit hard this offseason when transfer portal addition DJ Wingfield did not gain an extra year of eligibility after it was assumed he’d fall under the blanket waiver the NCAA would allow for players with Wingfield’s playing history of participating in one or more years at a non-NCAA intitution whose eligibility expired last season.

Instead, Wingfield’s waiver was denied and his search for help via the courtroom was subsequently denied. As a result, Wingfield’s college career is over and USC will have a hole to fill at left guard since Wingfield was fully expected to start there.

Head coach Lincoln Riley spoke a bit about it before the final decision came down. Earlier this week, he declined to comment much further in the immediate aftermath of the decision. On Thursday, he was ready to share his thoughts.

Here they are in full:

“The Wingfield situation,” Riley began before a deep sigh. “I’m a little bit at a loss for words on it, to be honest. I mean, this is where we’re at right now is that your eligibility depends on what state that you’re in and which judge that you get. We just need to stop ourselves just for a second and think about that. We’ve got a national sport that’s run by a national organization, but your eligibility depends on — which has been a huge question mark for so many people — depends on what state you’re in, what judge that you get, and what lawyer that you have in your trial.

“It’s sad that it’s gotten to this point, to be completely honest,” Riley said. “Again, I hate it, not just for DJ, but for all the different guys out there that were held in limbo for a long time. And the lack of direction given by the NCAA. If this was one person trying to game the system and get an extra year, I understand the stance behind not letting them play. The standards of the standards. That’s it. But look how many guys across the country, are in this situation. This is not one misunderstanding. This is not one guy trying to game the system. And understandably, we were all going through, the NCAA, all of us as institutions, employees, players, all of it. We were all going through massive changes, right? There were questions. Nobody really knew what was going to happen ind the settlement and NIL, all this stuff going on. And so we understand that there was some indecision on the NCAA’s part about all of this. I get that.

“There’s also a lot of indecision for these kids and for us as institutions, and you’ve got guys trying to make decisions in December, January, all that, when none of this was even agreed upon,” Riley continued. “So now you’ve got all these guys in this situation, and it’s just hard for me to fathom why we wouldn’t do the right thing and have a blanket waiver to let these guys play. Because, I mean, it’s not one person. You’re talking about a lot of guys across the country, and for it to come down to what state that you’re in, it makes no sense. So it’s really frustrating. I know it’s really frustrating for the kid. He’s been awesome. He came out to practice yesterday. It was great to see him. But it’s heartbreaking for these guys. And again, not just a guy playing for us. Like I’ve said, this would impact other teams that we’re going to play against. But the reality is, these kids should play. There was too much indecision and too much going on, and not enough national direction. And now that we’ve got the state-by-state thing, it’s not good for these kids. It’s not a good look for college football. I surely hope that we get it right, because these kids don’t get do-overs.”

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