Madison, Wis. – Wisconsin cornerback Nyzier Fourqurean says he would earn “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in compensation if he receives an injunction enabling him to maintain his eligibility and play for the Badgers this fall.
Fourqurean testified during a U.S. District Court hearing Tuesday. Fourqueran has argued that the two seasons he played at Division II program Grand Valley State shouldn’t count against his college eligibility.
During the hearing, Fourqurean said he earned $5,000 in name, image and likeness opportunities in 2023 and $45,000 in 2024. Fourqurean didn’t specify how much he would earn in 2025 but said it would be “hundreds of thousands.”
On cross examination, Fourqurean said there wasn’t a signed contract specifying how much he would receive if he plays at Wisconsin this season.
Fourqurean is hoping to get a decision on his request before Friday’s deadline for opting out of consideration for the NFL draft. He took his case to court last week after the NCAA denied Wisconsin’s request for a waiver granting him another year of eligibility.
U.S. District Judge William Conley didn’t make a ruling Tuesday but said he’s aware of the narrow window he has before the draft deadline.
Conley had requested the amount Fourqurean stood to earn because part of the cornerback’s case involved the NIL opportunities he would lose by not being granted more eligibility. Fourqurean said he received no NIL compensation during his years at Grand Valley State.
Fourqurean’s attempt to continue his college career comes after a U.S. federal judge granted a preliminary injunction last month enabling Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who spent two years at a junior college, to get another year of eligibility.
The NCAA is appealing the Pavia case but also issued a waiver enabling athletes who played at a non-NCAA school for more than one year to compete for one more year if they otherwise would have exhausted their eligibility in 2024-25.
A difference in this case, as Conley noted, is that Pavia was at a non-NCAA school during his junior college years whereas Fourqurean did attend an NCAA institution, albeit at a non-Division I level.
Conley also mentioned the possibility he could grant an injunction that later could get overruled by another court, leaving Fourqurean without any college eligibility or any opportunity to enter the draft.
Michael Crooks, the lawyer representing Fourqurean, said their hope in that instance is that the NCAA would do what it did in the Pavia case by offering his client an extra year of eligibility even as it appealed the ruling.
Fourqurean enrolled at Grand Valley State in 2020, when the pandemic canceled the season. He then played at Grand Valley State in 2021 and 2022 before transferring to Wisconsin in 2023.
In the complaint he filed last week, Fourqurean noted that the death of his father in the summer of 2021 impacted his mental health and limited his offseason training that year. Fourqurean participated in 11 games for Grand Valley State but played only 155 snaps.
Lawyers for the NCAA noted that snap counts shouldn’t be taken into consideration because it otherwise would enable any former Division II backup to request waivers for those years.
That 2021 season came before a 2023 NCAA rule change that enabled Division II athletes to redshirt seasons in which they played three games or fewer. Fourqurean noted that as soon as he stepped on the field for the first time that season, he had exhausted his eligibility for that particular year.
Fourqurean had 51 tackles and one interception last season while starting all 12 games for Wisconsin. He started five of the Badgers’ last six games in 2023.
His Tuesday hearing occurred on the same day that baseball player Trey Ciulla-Hall, who also began his college career at a Division II school, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts seeking an extra year of eligibility enabling him to play for Maryland this season.
Ciulla-Hall played the last four seasons at Stonehill College in North Easton, Massachusetts. The NCAA announced Jan. 28 it was denying Maryland’s bid for a waiver granting Ciulla-Hall another year of eligibility.
Big 12 schedules released
The 30th season of Big 12 football will kick off with a conference game in Dublin, Ireland.
That season-opening game overseas between Kansas State and Iowa State on Aug. 23 had been announced previously, but the Big 12 released the rest of its conference football schedule on Tuesday. Each of the 16 teams will play nine conference games, leading up to the league’s championship game Dec. 6 in Arlington, Texas.
There are only two weekends when all 16 conference teams will be in action. Those are Labor Day weekend and then eight conference games will be played Thanksgiving weekend to end the regular season.
Defending Big 12 champion Arizona State is scheduled to open conference play Sept. 20 at Baylor. That is the same day Kansas is set to host open league play in its renovated stadium against West Virginia, where Rich Rodriguez is back for his second stint as the Mountaineers head coach. They were in the Big East when Rodriguez was coach from 2001-07.
Scott Frost is back at UCF for the second time, but the Knights were in the American Athletic Conference when he coached them in 2016 and 2017. His first Big 12 game is scheduled Sept. 27 at Kansas State.
The Big 12’s television partners – ESPN, Fox and TNT Sports – haven’t yet made their selections for the first three weeks of the season. The league said some select Saturday games could be moved to Fridays or other special dates when those networks make their picks.
There will be 14 games that Big 12 teams will play against teams from other Power Four conferences, including Baylor hosting Auburn on Labor Day weekend. Nebraska plays Cincinnati in Kansas City on Thursday, Aug. 28, and TCU is at North Carolina for coach Bill Belichick’s debut with the Tar Heels on Sept. 1.
Big 12 teams Arizona and Kansas State will play the weekend of Sept. 13, a game that won’t count in the conference standings. That game fulfills scheduling agreements made before Arizona was part of the league’s expansion to 16 teams before last season.
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