Tennessee baseball’s Alberto Osuna is again seeking one final year of eligibility through legal matters. Osuna filed a motion of reverse memorandum opinion Monday following the Friday decision of Jett Elad v. NCAA.
A District Court in New Jersey ruled with Rutgers football player Jett Elad in a case which stated the NCAA can’t hold junior college seasons against college athletes five years of NCAA eligibility.
Elad— who spent three seasons at Ohio another at a junior college and two more at UNLV before transferring to Rutgers this offseason— has a similar case for eligibility as Osuna. Both have an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 eligibility relief and junior college years counting against them (one for Elad and two for Osuna).
Osuna played the first two years of his college career at Walters State Community College before transferring to North Carolina where he was a three year starter for the Tar Heels. The slugger transferred to Tennessee in January seeking eligibility on the same grounds that Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia and now Elad gained it.
Osuna twice suffered losses in court, first on his request for a temporary restraining order and later with a Knoxville judge denying his request for a preliminary injunction that would have granted him immediate eligibility.
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Since then, Osuna penned an open letter to the NCAA asking for them to grant him eligibility but that has yet to happen.
“If you were going to oppose my waiver all along, why did you tell me to file one?” Osuna asked the NCAA. “Why did you allow me to enter the transfer portal? Why did you let all of the student-athletes in their last season of competition at a Division II institution enter the portal? Why would you not provide clarity when I asked for it? … How is the NCAA harmed by letting me play? It is not. But I am irreparably harmed by not getting to play in my final season.”
Osuna was a three-year starter for North Carolina at both first base and designated hitter. The right-handed bat combined to hit .259 with 32 doubles, 45 home runs and 140 RBIs in his three seasons at North Carolina.
During the 2024 season, Osuna hit .281 with 17 doubles,14 home runs and 56 RBIs on the Tar Heels run to the College World Series. Despite not joining Tennessee’s roster until two weeks before first pitch, Osuna was a favorite to start for the Vols.
Tennessee baseball is 35-9 (13-8 SEC) entering the home stretch of the regular season. The Vols struggled in April, dropping three of four series, after entering the month as the unanimous No. 1 team in the country.
