DENVER — The NCAA picked up an important win in federal court Friday over its much-disputed five-year eligibility rule, though it fell short of shutting down the last-minute shuffling threatening to upend college sports rosters with the 2026 football season fast approaching.
A 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals halted, for now, a judge’s order that would have granted thousands of athletes an extra season of eligibility. However, it did nothing to resolve dozens of other lawsuits and court orders piling up across the country that allow players in the same situation to join teams for the upcoming season.
Virtually all these lawsuits involve players who graduated from high school in 2022, whose college eligibility ended last season, and who were not included in the NCAA’s controversial new rule — less than two months old — that grants most Division I student-athletes five seasons of eligibility over five years but doesn’t take effect until the 2027-28 academic/athletic year.
“There’s a reason we saw so many state-court lawsuits filed” after the now-paused federal court ruling that came down July 31, said Sam Ehrlich, a former lawyer who now works at Boise State and operates the College Sports Litigation Tracker. “It was a ‘just in case.’ They did it just in case what we just saw happen actually happened.”
Among the many athletes watching this unfold and wondering where it winds up are defensive linemen Stephan Daley and Kellan Wyatt, both members of the College Football Playoff national championship team at Indiana last season who decided to return for another year with the Hoosiers after the lower-court decision. So are former Ole Miss starters Zxavian Harris, Wydett Williams and Dae’Quan Wright, who won a ruling from a Louisiana state court giving them another season of eligibility even though they had signed with NFL teams this summer.