Decision made on Rahsul Faison’s future with South Carolina
The long saga of Rahsul Faison is finally over.
The NCAA on Monday approved Faison’s waiver for an additional year of college football eligibility — his seventh — allowing the 25-year-old to suit up for the Gamecocks in 2025, The State confirmed. 247 Sports’ Matt Zenitz was the first to report the news.
Faison quoted the news on X, saying “Thank you God.”
“I applaud the NCAA for looking at all of the facts in Rahsul Faison’s appeal and making the right decision today,” USC AD Jeremiah Donati wrote on X. “He has been patiently waiting for this decision, and we share in his excitement to have one more year of eligibility and be a member of our football team this year.”
Nearly nine months after he signed with South Carolina, after the NCAA began its inquisition into Faison’s eligibility, after it requested everything up to his dental records ... then kept asking for more. After the organization was called out by South Carolina coach Shane Beamer, then Faison’s lawyer, then everyone else ... Faison finally has the green light to keep going.
It’s a “Yep, he’s good” over a half-year in the making.
To some, that was far too long.
One problem: The NCAA’s blanket waiver giving an extra year of eligibility to former junior college student athletes — informally dubbed the “Diego Pavia rule” — did not include Faison because it applied only to those who had time remaining on their five-year NCAA clock, those who had began their college career in 2019 or sooner.
That was a year too late for Faison — who, as detailed before, has endured an immense amount of change for a college football player.
- 2018 — Though he committed to Stony Brook, Faison did not enroll due to academic issues. He instead enrolled at an all-boys college prep school in Connecticut.
- 2019 — Commits to Marshall, but only as a grayshirt — meaning he wasn’t technically on the football team or on scholarship, forcing him to pay for his first semester of schooling.
- 2020 — Because of financial trouble, Faison moved home and didn’t play football. He took online classes at Lackawanna College in Pennsylvania.
- 2021 & 2022 — Played at Snow College, a junior college in Utah.
- 2023 & 2024 — Played at Utah State.
- And now: 2025 — Will play at at South Carolina.
Explaining the delay for Faison ruling
South Carolina initially built its case to the NCAA on Faison’s eligibility clock and the hardship he encountered during his college journey. The NCAA denied that waiver a few months ago, per a University source, but allowed South Carolina to re-submit its case around a new focus.
The NCAA was hung up on the very beginning of Faison’s college career, needing to get clarification and paperwork about his eligibility dating back to his time at Marshall in 2019. The NCAA needed some responses and answers from Marshall, which was tough given very few folks there were around in 2019 and, well, it just went through a change at athletic director.
And then some important precedent was established in between South Carolina’s first and second submissions to the NCAA. In late April, Rutgers football player Jett Elad — who also began playing college football in 2019 and spent time at a junior college — won an antitrust case against the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility.
Few of the details between Elad’s and Faison’s cases are different. And, per the University source, South Carolina was able to use Elad’s positive precedent to help secure Faison’s extra year of eligibility, helping end what has been an up-and-down few months for him.
Almost nine months ago, before the NCAA began handling his case at a glacial pace, he was about to head to Orlando to train for the NFL Combine. Then came the Pavia Rule. New life. He showed up at South Carolina in January, practiced all throughout the spring, looked like either the Gamecocks’ No. 1 or No. 2 running back at the spring game.
And then the came info that, well, no one was sure if he could actually play in 2025.
“It’s getting frustrating,” Beamer said in early May. “The fact that (the NCAA has) had everything that they needed from us since January and we don’t have an answer is frankly disappointing. ... We’ve given them everything they needed back in January. They asked for more. We gave them what they needed.”
At long last, the NCAA got everything it was looking for. And, just as everyone expected back in January, Faison will suit up for the Gamecocks in 2025.
This story was originally published August 25, 2025 at 4:16 PM.
