Can Washington Huskies really fight Demond Williams Jr.’s transfer decision?

The University of Washington has not formally submitted quarterback Demond Williams Jr.’s name in the NCAA transfer portal, an athletic department spokesperson said Wednesday, as it begins what may be a lengthy and contentious legal process following Tuesday’s shocking announcement of his intention to leave the school.

That likely will not prevent Williams, a sophomore, from transferring, but instead is part of initial legal posturing. UW said it intends to pursue legal action to enforce the name, image and likeness (NIL) license agreement it has with Williams.

The terms of that agreement are unclear, and UW did not respond Wednesday to requests to provide a copy of the agreement. Williams signed a one-year agreement, worth $4 million, with UW on Jan. 2, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to The Seattle Times.

UW will pursue all legal avenues to protect our institution,” Kurt Svoboda, a deputy athletic director, wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon. He declined to answer further questions on what UW might do.

The dispute between UW and its erstwhile star quarterback is the latest touchstone in the new era of college football — where colleges pay players but insist they are not employees, players and coaches switch schools on a whim, and athletes, coaches, schools and conferences are, at all times, looking out for themselves.

The Big Ten Conference did not respond to requests for comment on the situation. Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported that UW officials and Williams’ representatives are expected to speak Wednesday in pursuit of a resolution. The report added that LSU remained the program with the most interest in Williams, who reportedly planned to enter the portal with a “do-not-contact tag,” which signals that he does not want schools to initiate recruiting talks with him.

There are two important things to remember in the wake of Williams’ stunning decision to transfer. One: Williams is a college student. Two: Williams is not, and never has been, an employee of the University of Washington.

College students are allowed to transfer schools. Just like they’re allowed to drop out. Or take a semester off.

So any legal action by UW would almost certainly be confined to trying to get money from Williams or his next school, not to trying to keep him on Montlake.

“College athletes aren’t employees,” said David Ridpath, a professor of sports business at Ohio University and an expert on intercollegiate athletics. “The legal recourse, to me, that they have is just, ‘Hey we’re not going to pay you any money,’ or if he’s gotten money already I guess he’d have to pay that back.”

“This is a college student, and he signed a licensing agreement,” he said. “If he doesn’t complete that, then they don’t have to pay him.”

If UW pursues a case, Ridpath said, it could become more fodder for the continued transformation of college athletics, away from amateurism and toward full-blown pay for play. Cases such as this, he said, could lead to athletes being classified as employees and some sort of collective bargaining agreement between conferences, schools and athletes.

“This could blow up in Washington’s face,” he said.

The Seattle Times previously obtained, through public records requests, a redacted copy of the boilerplate NIL contract that UW signed with dozens of student-athletes this fall, following the June court agreement that allowed colleges and universities to directly share revenue with student-athletes for the first time.

There is no guarantee that this is the exact agreement Williams signed, but it is likely very similar.

In one respect, the agreement cannot be more clear: “The Student-Athlete is not, and shall not claim to be, an employee of the Institution.”

The agreement goes into great detail about when UW is allowed to terminate the agreement: The school can cancel it if it they decide to change coaches, if the athlete “breached any responsibilities” or if the athlete transfers to another school. But it contains little to no language on when the athlete is allowed to terminate the contract.

It does say that UW is not obligated to place an athlete into the transfer portal or to assist them in transferring. But the transfer portal, despite its name, is not some magic tunnel to another school. It’s just a list of athletes who want to transfer. Athletes can transfer — just like any student — without entering the mythical portal.

In June, the University of Wisconsin and its NIL collective filed a court complaint against the University of Miami, alleging that Miami had interfered with its agreement with then-Badgers defensive back Xavier Lucas.

Lucas withdrew from Wisconsin in January and enrolled at Miami without entering the transfer portal, which had closed. He previously had signed a two-year revenue-sharing contract, which — like Williams’ potential deal at Washington — stated that Wisconsin, a Big Ten school, had no obligation to enter him in the transfer portal once he’d signed the agreement.

A Pompano Beach, Fla., native, Lucas stated through his lawyer that he chose to transfer to Miami after learning his father was battling a life-threatening illness. Wisconsin argued that Lucas’ reasoning when requesting to transfer had been inconsistent and alleged that Miami made multiple impermissible contacts with Lucas before he unenrolled.

Wisconsin’s lawsuit is still ongoing. Lucas has played in 14 games for No. 10 Miami this season, which will play No. 6 Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday with a place in the College Football Playoff championship game on the line.

“It’s almost an identical situation,” Mit Winter, a Kansas City, Mo., attorney who provides college sports and NCAA-related legal services, said. “It’s possible that in addition to taking some legal action against Williams, they might potentially take some legal action against another school, which is what Wisconsin did.”

UW’s NIL license agreement requires an athlete that transfers before the end of the contract to reimburse the school for a prorated portion of any money they’ve received, among other possible resolutions.

For the duration of the agreement, it says that even if the athlete transfers, they won’t allow their NIL to be used by the school they transfer to. If that clause was enforced against Williams, it may prevent him from being paid by his new school.

Winters said UW likely will demand a sizable payout from Williams to return his NIL rights so the quarterback can take them to another school. If the sides can agree to a settlement for Williams to get his NIL rights back, they can avoid further legal action.

“They can’t keep him there,” Winters said. “They can’t say, ‘You have to stay here and play quarterback for UW.’ … What they’re probably looking for is to set that precedent that if you’re going to leave during the term of one of these agreements when we have your exclusive NIL rights in connection with a school, you’re going to have to pay us to get out of it.

“Or the school you’re going to is going to have to pay us to buy you out of your contract.”

The agreement and a related memorandum that student-athletes also sign contain all sorts of clauses beneficial to the university.

The university, for instance, can lower an athlete’s pay “at any time” for reasons such as a reduction in playing time. The university can cancel the contract if a player is medically unable to play.

There is, of course, an irony in UW seeking to hold a player to the strict terms of the contract he signed.

Two years ago, UW watched helplessly as then-coach Kalen DeBoer left for Alabama. Coaches, unlike players, are employees. If UW wanted to include a noncompete clause in coaching contracts that prevented them from jumping to other schools, they could certainly do that.

Just last month, UW watched as rumors flew that Michigan might be interested in DeBoer’s replacement, current UW coach Jedd Fisch. Michigan ultimately went another direction, but had it made an offer to Fisch, there was nothing UW could have done — nothing in Fisch’s contract, save a monetary buyout — to prevent him from taking off.

“We know that Jedd Fisch would leave in a second for a better job,” Ridpath said. “Why do we think college athletes are different? We have to get past this pearl-clutching of loyalty and all this. It is a business. I don’t blame the athlete one bit.”