Indiana football safety Louis Moore will be eligible to play in the team’s first two games, but his status for the rest of the 2025 remains up in the air.
Judge Dale Tillery granted Moore a 14-day extension on the TRO he put in place back on Aug. 13 as his attorney’s seek discovery from the NCAA over a motion to dismiss the case on the ground that the Dallas County Court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case.
The 90-minute hearing on Wednesday never touched on merits of injunction Moore was seeking that would keep him eligible for the full 2025 season.
Tillery scheduled a follow-up hearing on Sept. 10 at 9 a.m. and ordered the NCAA to produce, “all contracts with any Texas resident, including all contracts that would otherwise be performed in whole or in part in the State of Texas, including revenue sharing agreements, subject to any objections the Defendant may raise” and produce a corporate representative for a deposition with knowledge of those deals.
The NCAA challenged the Dallas County court’s jurisdiction since the conduct in the lawsuit doesn’t arise in the state of Texas. The organization’s attorney Taylor Askew argued that the case should be dismissed without prejudice to allow Moore to refilled in the proper venue.
“Which would be Indiana,” Askew said. “He wants to play football for Indiana, the university he wants to play for is in Indiana, the NCAA is Indiana, and I believe Mr. Moore is presently in Indiana right now. The harm, the NIL opportunities, all flow from Indiana, that’s where it should be filed.”
Moore’s attorney Brian Lauten claimed that the business interests and revenue the NCAA generates in the state give Dallas County jurisdiction over the case. He used the massive amount revenue the organization generated from last year’s Final Four that was hosted in San Antonio as an example.
Tillery allowed Moore’s attorneys discovery to determine the extent of those dealings that would potentially back up that claim.
“I think it lacks sincerity in my view for the NCAA to have all these members here, to probably have curated more money in the state of Texas than any one entity in 2025 with the Final Four … to come here and say, ‘we aren’t really subject of your court’, I don’t think that’s credible,” Lauten said.
Askew conceded the NCAA’s dealings in the state, but Moore still has to prove those are related to the case in front of the court.
“This isn’t calculated to gain an advantage, this is putting chess pieces where they are supposed to go,” Askew said.
Moore challenged the NCAA’s JUCO eligibility rules earlier this month after it denied his initial waiver request for an additional year of eligibility in June and dragged its feet ruling on the appeal the school filed — his attorney revealed in court that the appeal was officially denied on Aug. 22 — even though the organization issued a blanket waiver last 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 Ole Miss believing he would be eligible to play an additional season under those guidelines having started out his career at Navarro College from 2019-21.
According to Moore’s lawsuit, he would lose out on a “one-in-a-lifetime” name, image, and likeness contract worth $400,000 if he wasn’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.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Will Louis Moore be eligible to play Indiana football’s season-opener? Latest updates
Reporting by Michael Niziolek, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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