
Utah QB Cam Rising medically retiring from football after 7-year NCAA career due to hand injury
Under the bright lights of Allegiant Stadium last July, Cam Rising flashed his patented smile and laughed as the Utah quarterback was asked if he would consider ever triggering an eighth year of NCAA eligibility in 2025.
'Seven is good enough for me,' he said. 'But you never know. The cards are always on the table.'
At Big 12 Conference Media Day in Las Vegas last summer, the Utes were hyped as the favorite of the newly restructured 16-team conference. They had Rising returning after missing nearly two years of football following a gruesome knee injury in the 2023 Rose Bowl, they had their seasoned head coach in Kyle Whittingham and a roster believed at the time to be among the best in the league.
But Rising, known as one of the most fearless quarterbacks in college who took on linebackers and safeties alike in the open field, would see yet another series of unfortunate events derail a promising season. After suffering hand and lower leg injuries last fall, the 25-year-old quarterback who led Utah to back-to-back Pac-12 titles in 2021 and 2022 announced Wednesday he was medically retiring from football.
Bad Moon Out. pic.twitter.com/hfn5n5WtKB
— Cameron Rising (@crising7) May 7, 2025
'Due to a hand injury I suffered during the Baylor game, I've been advised by two orthopedic physicians that I will never be able to return to playing football,' Rising wrote in his posts on social media.
Rising said he will obtain a third opinion before undergoing surgery on his right hand that was injured in Utah's Week 2 win over Baylor last year when he was shoved out of bounds and into a Gatorade station on the Baylor sideline. The injury forced him to miss the next three games. Rising returned to start Utah's game at Arizona State, but he suffered a season-ending lower leg injury in the game. He played injured throughout the 27-19 loss to the Sun Devils.
The long and brutal road back from the injury suffered against Penn State in the Rose Bowl looked to be worth it in Utah's season-opening 49-0 win over Southern Utah last fall. Rising started for the first time in 606 days and threw a career-high five touchdowns in one half. That elation was short-lived.
Rising suffered a major knee injury in the 2023 Rose Bowl, tearing his ACL, MCL, meniscus and MPFL, the ligament that stabilizes the kneecap. While Rising was rehabbing his injury in the fall of 2023, he faced mounting pressure from the Utah fan base, which wondered exactly where he was in his process of returning from the serious injury. That October, he gave The Athletic permission to speak to his surgeon, renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache, about the severity of his injury.
As he noted in his farewell note on social media, Rising now has to step away from the game he loves for good. Rising's best statistical season came in 2022 when he earned All-Pac-12 honors for a second year in a row, throwing for 3,034 yards, 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions. He added another six rushing touchdowns.
Rising transferred to Utah from Texas in 2019 and won the starting quarterback job in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, but suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the first quarter of Utah's season-opener that fall against USC.
When healthy, Rising was respected by NFL scouts for his competitive nature and leadership qualities. The Athletic's scouting expert Dane Brugler said prior to the 2024 season, Rising was projected by scouts to be a priority free agent in the draft process. Brugler added that had Rising recorded a highly productive senior season, he could be a late-round pick.
(Photo: Chris Gardner / Getty Images)

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A year later, in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in a separate case, Alston vs. NCAA, that the NCAA violated antitrust laws by limiting the amount of education-related benefits, such as laptops, books and musical instruments, that universities could provide to their athletes. The ruling challenged the NCAA's amateurism model, while opening the door for future lawsuits tied to athlete compensation. It also burnished the plaintiffs' case in House vs. NCAA, compelling college athletics' governing body to take part in settlement talks. What were some of the key changes that took place in college sports after the Supreme Court's decision in Alston vs. NCAA? Following Alston, the NCAA permitted universities to dole out several thousand dollars in what's called "education benefits pay" to student-athletes. This could include cash bonuses for maintaining a certain grade-point average or simply satisfying NCAA academic eligibility requirements. 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(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Joshua Lens, University of Iowa (THE CONVERSATION) The business of college sports was upended after a federal judge approved a settlement between the NCAA and former college athletes on June 6, 2025. After a lengthy litigation process, the NCAA has agreed to provide US$2.8 billion in back pay to former and current college athletes, while allowing schools to directly pay athletes for the first time. Joshua Lens, whose scholarship centers on the intersection of sports, business and the law, tells the story of this settlement and explains its significance within the rapidly changing world of college sports. What will change for players and schools with this settlement? 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By focusing only on educational expenses, the NCAA was able to reinforce the notion that collegiate athletes are amateurs who may not receive pay for participating in athletics, despite making money for their schools. A year later, in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in a separate case, Alston v. NCAA, that the NCAA violated antitrust laws by limiting the amount of education-related benefits, such as laptops, books and musical instruments, that universities could provide to their athletes. The ruling challenged the NCAA's amateurism model while opening the door for future lawsuits tied to athlete compensation. It also burnished the plaintiffs' case in House v. NCAA, compelling college athletics' governing body to take part in settlement talks. What were some of the key changes that took place in college sports after the Supreme Court's decision in Alston v. NCAA? Following Alston, the NCAA permitted universities to dole out several thousand dollars in what's called ' education benefits pay ' to student-athletes. This could include cash bonuses for maintaining a certain GPA or simply satisfying NCAA academic eligibility requirements. But contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court's Alston decision didn't let college athletes be paid via NIL deals. The NCAA continued to maintain that this would violate its principles of amateurism. However, many states, beginning with California, introduced or passed laws that required universities within their borders to allow their athletes to accept NIL compensation. With over a dozen states looking to pass similar laws, the NCAA folded on June 30, 2021, changing its policy so athletes could accept NIL compensation for the first time. Will colleges and universities be able to weather all of these financial commitments? The settlement will result in a windfall for certain current and former collegiate athletes, with some expected to receive several hundred thousands of dollars. Universities and their athletics departments, on the other hand, will have to reallocate resources or cut spending. Some will cut back on travel expenses for some sports, others have paused facility renovations, while other athletic departments may resort to cutting sports whose revenue does not exceed their expenses. As Texas A&M University athletic director Trev Alberts has explained, however, that college sports does not have a revenue problem – it has a spending problem. Even in the well-resourced Southeastern Conference, for example, many universities' athletics expenses exceed its revenue. Do you see any future conflicts on the horizon? Many observers hope the settlement brings stability to the industry. But there's always a chance that the settlement will be appealed. More potential challenges could involve Title IX, the federal gender equity statute that prohibits discrimination based on sex in schools. What if, for example, a university subject to the statute distributes the vast majority of revenue to male athletes? Such a scenario could violate Title IX. On the other hand, a university that more equitably distributes revenue among male and female athletes could face legal backlash from football athletes who argue that they should be entitled to more revenue, since their games earn the big bucks. And as I pointed out in a recent law review article, an athlete or university may challenge the new enforcement process that will attempt to limit athletes' NIL compensation within an acceptable range that is based on a fair market valuation. The NCAA and the conferences named in the lawsuit have hired the accountancy firm Deloitte to determine whether athletes' compensation from NIL deals fall within an acceptable range based on a fair market valuation, looking to other collegiate and professional athletes to set a benchmark range. If athletes and universities have struck deals that are too generous, both could be penalized, according to the terms of the settlement. Finally, the settlement does not address – let alone solve – issues facing international student-athletes who want to earn money via NIL. Most international student-athletes' visas, and the laws regulating them, heavily limit their ability to accept compensation for work, including NIL pay. Some lawmakers have tried to address this issue in the past, but it hasn't been a priority for the NCAA, as it has lobbied Congress for a federal NIL law.