BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football safety Louis Moore won an injunction against the NCAA in Dallas County Court on Wednesday afternoon that will keep him on the field for the remainder of the 2025 season, per a signed order from Judge Dale Tillery.
Moore challenged the NCAA’s JUCO eligibility rules after the organization denied IU‘s waiver request to grant him an additional year of eligibility.
Tillery adjourned the nearly five-hour hearing without issuing a decision, but later ruled in favor of an injunction after reviewing testimony and documents in the case. The injunction runs through the trial that Tillery scheduled for Jan. 29, 2026, at 8:30 a.m., a date that’s 10 days after the national title game.
The order states that the NCAA is “enjoined from enforcing the Five-Year Rule as it applies to Moore’s time at a junior college.”
“He’s done an incredible job navigating something that’s so complicated, and still leading his team in tackles and interceptions, it really speaks volumes about his maturity,” his lawyer Brian Lauten told The Herald-Times. “I’ve never been so proud to represent someone. This is a kid that’s had to fight for everything he has. I’m so glad that he gets to put this behind him.”
Lauten also hopes the NCAA takes note of the victory.
“This isn’t just a win for Louis Moore; this is for all the student-athletes in similar situations who have been unfairly penalized by the NCAA enforcing rules that have been illegally applied to junior colleges,” Lauten said.
Moore testified Wednesday that he’s received $330,000 from Indiana in NIL payments this season, and that an Indiana coach told him he could lose his scholarship and have to pay back some portion of the NIL money he received if he lost his eligibility.
Both sides called expert witnesses to testify over the antitrust claims at the heart of the case.
Drexel professor of sports business Joel Maxcy, who has testified against the NCAA in other recent eligibility cases, appeared on Moore’s behalf at the hearing. He argued the eligibility rule that Moore challenged removes the most productive and valuable participants from the NIL market, and those players generally “command the highest market value.”
The court previously granted Moore a temporary restraining order in the case at the end of August, which was set to expire Wednesday after being twice extended. The most recent delay occurred as the NCAA sought to fulfill a discovery request in relation to its motion to dismiss the case, arguing that Dallas County lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
The parties spent more than an hour arguing the motion.
“He’s never been subject to NCAA rules in the state of Texas ever,” NCAA attorney Taylor Askew said. “It doesn’t feel good to enforce these kind of restrictions, but there’s no allegations in this case that the NCAA has done something to him within this state.”
Askew said all of Moore’s allegations stem from actions that occurred within Indiana, and he should be seeking relief there. While he conceded the NCAA makes rules that govern student-athletes across the country, he cited Texas State Supreme Court precedent that those directed actions weren’t enough to meet the threshold of jurisdiction.
Lauten pushed back at this claim.
“He’s not ineligible because he’s in Indiana,” he said. “It’s not the physical location where the rule is made, it’s where it’s directed.”
Tillery, who didn’t offer any explanation for dismissing the motion, sounded sympathetic to the claim as he directly questioned the NCAA’s attorney about how the organization’s rules impact Moore and JUCO student-athletes across the state.
Moore challenged the NCAA’s JUCO eligibility rules after it denied his initial waiver request for an additional year of eligibility in June — his appeal of that ruling has since been denied — even though the organization issued a blanket waiver in December that granted athletes an extra year of eligibility in 2025-26 who “competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years.”
He entered the transfer portal after spending the 2024 season at Mississippi, believing he would be eligible to play an additional season under those guidelines, having started his career at Navarro College from 2019 to 2021.
According to Moore’s lawsuit, he would lose out on a “one-in-a-lifetime” name, image, and likeness contract if he weren’t allowed to play in 2025, and miss an opportunity to “enhance his career and reputation by playing another year of Division I football at an NCAA major conference university that likely extends beyond the direct financial returns.”
Moore has 23 tackles (15 solo) with two interceptions and a pair of pass breakups.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Louis Moore NCAA eligibility case, Indiana football player wins for season
