Dan Wetzel breaks down first-of-its-kind Wisconsin-Miami tampering lawsuit

The Wisconsin Badgers recently launched a tampering lawsuit against the Miami Hurricanes. This is a first-of-its-kind legal action in college sports, which has the possibility of becoming the next major legal case to shake up college athletics.

The lawsuit is over the transfer of Xavier Lucas. A defensive back who stood out as a freshman in 2024 for Wisconsin, Lucas had been recruited by both schools out of high school and would eventually go to the Badgers. In December, he’d look to transfer and that’s when things got interesting.

Reporter Dan Wetzel recently appeared on ESPN’s College GameDay Podcast. There, he broke down the lawsuit.

“First off, I love it,” Dan Wetzel said. “We have one school suing the other. Wisconsin sues Miami in Dane County Circuit Court. They didn’t go federal on this. Dane County Circuit Court, which is the county of Madison. They’re going for the home game against the Hurricanes. Jury trial. Stack the odds. I think they play ‘Jump Around’ before the closing arguments in Dane County Circuit Court. So, I’m guessing there will be a venue complaint return from Miami that we do not have standing in Dane County.”

In December, it was reported that Lucas would be entering the Transfer Portal. However, a week or so later, Lucas publicly shared that the school wouldn’t officially enter his name, as typically happens when a player transfers. By January, he still wasn’t officially in the portal as a dispute erupted regarding whether he could speak to other schools. At the time, Miami was already regarded as a possible landing spot. Eventually, Lucas would find a workaround by withdrawing from Wisconsin and enrolling at Miami.

Wisconsin filed its lawsuit against Miami in June. In it, the school claimed that Miami was tampering with Lucas.

“I don’t know how serious this thing is. I read it, I actually think Wisconsin’s issue is probably with the player, not with Miami,” Wetzel said. “But, at issue here is Rule 13.1.1.3. — any athletic staff member or other representative of an institution’s athletics shall not communicate or make contact with the student-athlete of another NCAA Division I institution or any individual associated, blah, blah, blah. Based on the facts presented by Wisconsin, Miami certainly broke that rule. Now, that’s an NCAA rule. Is this really tortuous interference? I don’t know. What is an NIL contract worth? What is tampering? That’s really the issue.”

Tampering has become a massive topic of concern for coaches in recent years. NIL and the Transfer Portal have created massive roster movement, and that incentivizes teams to speak to players to get them to enter the portal, knowing the offer they’ll receive once they enter.

“This is where coaches are up in arms about tampering,” Wetzel said. “And I understand why they are up in arms about tampering. They would hate it, but without making the players employees, it’s very hard to do this. I really feel like even in the NFL, which we’ve not seen teams sue each other yet, they have strict tampering rules but it’s almost unenforceable. It’s, well, Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay just happened to show up at the exact same vacation resort, and then Matthew said he wanted to go play for the Rams. Totally coincidental. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. How do you do this?”

Notably, the attorney for Lucas has denied that he met with Miami representatives before intending to transfer. That attorney, Darren Heitner, has also threatened an antitrust lawsuit against Wisconsin.

“Now, Miami is accused of having a sit-down meeting with a coach and a booster. That is against 13.1.1.3. in my judicial opinion,” Wetzel said. “But does that really merit a lawsuit and what is the monetary damages? What are we trying to get out of it? You can’t make a kid go to school somewhere. So, I think there’s a lot of issues here with the tampering.”

The lawsuit has been widely described as “unprecedented.” How it ends up working out remains to be seen, but depending on its result, how players move from schools could once again be shaken up.