{"id":716296,"date":"2026-01-30T10:41:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/716296\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T10:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:41:23","slug":"ncaa-denies-ou-football-linebacker-owen-heineckes-eligibility-petition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/716296\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA denies OU football linebacker Owen Heinecke&#8217;s eligibility petition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NORMAN \u2014 The NCAA denied <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/ncaaf\/teams\/oklahoma-sooners\/3430\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Oklahoma;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Oklahoma<\/a> linebacker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oklahoman.com\/story\/sports\/college\/sooners\/2026\/01\/21\/ou-football-lb-owen-heinecke-ncaa-eligibility-case-appeal-lawsuit-oklahoma-sooners\/88260270007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Owen Heinecke\u2019s;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Owen Heinecke\u2019s<\/a> petition for another year of eligibility, general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oklahoman.com\/story\/sports\/college\/sooners\/2025\/12\/04\/ou-football-recruiting-jim-nagy-first-signing-day-class-sooners\/87592377007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Jim Nagy;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Jim Nagy<\/a> announced Thursday night on X.<\/p>\n<p>Nagy said Heinecke will appeal the decision.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The denial for an extra year of eligibility was expected. The NCAA is counting three games of lacrosse at Ohio State in 2021 against Heinecke.<\/p>\n<p>Heinecke broke out for the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/ncaaf\/teams\/oklahoma-sooners\/3430\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Sooners;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Sooners<\/a> during their run to the College Football Playoff this past season, totaling 74 tackles, 12 tackles for loss and a fumble recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what Nagy said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOU football fans: NCAA has denied Owen Heinecke\u2019s petition for another year at OU. When other players are being granted 7th and 8th years of football, CFB governing body has ruled Owen won\u2019t get a 4th year. Evidently, this walk-on\u2019s three games of lacrosse at Ohio State in 2021 couldn\u2019t be reconciled. There will be an appeal. If that appeal is denied, one lucky NFL team is going to get a stud two-contract player and an even better human being. Love everything you\u2019re about, Owen. You stand for everything that is pure and great about college football, Owen Heinecke!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>If Heinecke was able to return to OU in 2026 it would help the Sooners\u2019 depth at linebacker tremendously.<\/p>\n<p>Colton Sulley covers the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/college-sports\/sec\/oklahoma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Oklahoma Sooners;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Oklahoma Sooners<\/a> for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Colton? He can be reached at csulley@oklahoman.com or on X\/Twitter at @colton_sulley. Support Colton&#8217;s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a <a href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.oklahoman.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oklahoman.com\/story\/sports\/college\/sooners\/2026\/01\/29\/ncaa-denies-owen-heinecke-ou-football-eligibility-petition-sooners\/88426149007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:NCAA denies OU football LB Owen Heinecke&#039;s eligibility petition;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">NCAA denies OU football LB Owen Heinecke&#8217;s eligibility petition<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORMAN \u2014 The NCAA denied Oklahoma linebacker Owen Heinecke\u2019s petition for another year of eligibility, general manager Jim&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[332,7,103709,38603,49,48,1446,1135,22235,102860,6103],"class_list":["post-716296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football-playoff","tag-football","tag-heinecke","tag-jim-nagy","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ohio-state","tag-oklahoma","tag-ou","tag-owen-heinecke","tag-sooners"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115983632544662957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}