The NCAA Has One Eligibility Rule. Courts Are Producing Different Answers.

Strategic Analysis | September 12, 2026

The NCAA has a national eligibility rule.

It increasingly does not have a national answer to who is eligible.

An Arizona football player can be cleared by a state judge in time to play BYU. An Arizona basketball player challenging essentially the same Class-of-2022 transition rule can lose the protection of a Georgia injunction two days earlier. Indiana players can remain eligible because a hearing gets postponed. A group of Marshall and Ohio University athletes can lose in federal court because they did not build the antitrust record another group successfully built in Colorado.

Same governing body. Same transition rule. Same graduating class.

Different courts. Different law. Different records. Different answers.

That is becoming the real story of the NCAA’s latest eligibility fight.

The legal question is important: whether the NCAA lawfully excluded athletes who exhausted four seasons by the end of 2025–26 from its new age-based eligibility framework.

But the larger structural problem may matter more.

Eligibility is becoming a form of emergency litigation.

Once that happens, a rule designed to operate nationally starts functioning locally. Athletes do not merely ask what the NCAA bylaws say. They ask where they can sue, what state law applies, how quickly they can obtain a hearing, whether a judge will issue a temporary restraining order, and whether the NCAA can get that order stayed before kickoff.

That is not just messy litigation.

It changes competitive outcomes.

And unless an appellate court, a coordinated settlement, or the NCAA itself restores uniformity, the Class-of-2022 cases offer a preview of a college-sports system in which national governance increasingly exists alongside fifty-state judicial review.

The irony begins with why the NCAA changed the rule in the first place.

For decades, Division I generally operated under a familiar structure: an athlete had five calendar years in which to use four seasons of competition, subject to redshirts, hardship waivers, clock extensions, delayed-enrollment rules, sport-specific exceptions, and other complications.

The NCAA decided that system had become too complicated.

In June, Division I adopted a new age-based framework. Under amended Bylaw 12.6, an athlete’s period of eligibility generally lasts five academic years beginning with the earlier of initial full-time college enrollment or the academic year following the athlete’s nineteenth birthday. The new model eliminates the traditional seasons-of-competition limitation and much of the waiver machinery that accompanied it.

In practical terms, many athletes will now be able to compete throughout all five years of the eligibility period.

But the NCAA drew a transition line.

Current athletes who still had eligibility remaining after 2025–26 generally receive whichever system—the old rules or the new model—produces the better result. Athletes who used their final season under the old system in 2025–26 receive “no additional eligibility.”

That group includes many athletes who entered college in 2022 and competed in four consecutive seasons.

Hence the lawsuits.

The NCAA’s policy position is straightforward: those athletes received every season available under the rules that governed them. A new rule can operate prospectively without reopening every eligibility determination that became final under the old one.

The athletes’ response is equally intuitive: the NCAA has decided that five seasons during the five-year period is now acceptable, yet the class sitting directly on the transition line remains limited to four.

The fight was always likely to produce litigation.

What was less obvious was how quickly it would produce different eligibility systems in different courtrooms.

For a moment, Wisne v. NCAA looked like it might resolve the problem nationally.

The federal class action was filed in Colorado on behalf of Class-of-2022 athletes challenging the transition exclusion under federal antitrust law.

On July 31, U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney granted emergency injunctive relief and certified a Rule 23(b)(2) class for purposes of that relief. The injunction prevented the NCAA from using its rule to bar covered Class-of-2022 athletes from competing in a fifth season.

Sweeney concluded on the preliminary record that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their Sherman Act claim.

When the NCAA later argued that the injunction would create administrative and competitive chaos, Sweeney responded that the NCAA was in a “bind of its own making” because its own transition decision had produced the underlying conflict.

For several weeks, Wisne created something approaching a national solution.

Florida guard Denzel Aberdeen was among the athletes who appeared to gain a fifth season. Arizona players returned to practice. Schools around the country began planning around the class-wide injunction.

Then the Tenth Circuit intervened.

On August 21, the appellate court stayed the injunction pending the NCAA’s appeal.

That did not mean the NCAA had finally won the merits.

A stay pending appeal is not a final judgment.

But its practical effect was enormous.

The nationwide umbrella disappeared.

And once it disappeared, athletes began looking for smaller umbrellas.

That is where the strategic landscape changed.

Without Wisne supplying nationwide relief, Class-of-2022 athletes had a powerful incentive to seek individual or small-group orders in state and federal courts around the country.

Consider what has happened.

Arizona running back Ismail Mahdi, linebacker Max Harris, and kicker Sullivan Moon obtained a temporary restraining order from Pima County Superior Court on September 9.

Two days later, Arizona officially added all three to its roster. Mahdi and Harris traveled for the Wildcats’ game against No. 15 BYU. A show-cause hearing is scheduled for September 21.

The merits have not been finally decided.

But football does not wait for final judgments.

For competitive purposes, the TRO was enough.

Indiana defensive linemen Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt obtained a temporary restraining order from a Monroe County court on September 4 that allowed them to become eligible for the Hoosiers’ opener.

Their next hearing was supposed to occur September 11.

It was postponed.

The temporary relief therefore remained in place long enough for them to retain eligibility for another game.

That is a perfect illustration of the current problem.

Nothing substantive about NCAA eligibility changed when the hearing moved.

But the calendar changed who could play.

In Jefferson County, Kentucky, a group of Class-of-2022 athletes—including Louisville basketball player Seth Trimble and football players connected to Kentucky and Louisville—obtained temporary relief on August 21.

The case expanded to include additional athletes.

When the NCAA sought emergency appellate intervention, the Kentucky Court of Appeals declined to stay the TRO, leaving the athletes eligible while the case proceeds.

Again, that is not a final ruling that the transition policy is unlawful.

It is enough to affect the season.

Georgia demonstrates how quickly the opposite can happen.

A Cobb County judge issued an interlocutory injunction on August 5 protecting a group of Class-of-2022 basketball players.

On September 9, the Georgia Court of Appeals granted the NCAA’s emergency motion to stay that injunction pending appeal.

Players who had planned around the injunction suddenly lost its protection.

One of them, Arizona basketball forward RJ Godfrey, found himself on the opposite side of the legal line from Arizona football players who obtained fresh protection from an Arizona court that same day.

Same university.

Same broad NCAA controversy.

Different lawsuits.

Different result.

That may be the cleanest illustration of the entire problem.

It would be easy to describe all of this as judges simply disagreeing over whether the NCAA’s policy is fair.

That is too simplistic.

The cases are producing different outcomes partly because the legal claims themselves change depending on where they are filed.

That matters enormously.

In Borovicanin v. NCAA, an Ohio state judge granted preliminary relief on July 9 to Class-of-2022 basketball players challenging the transition rule. The court found sufficient grounds at the preliminary stage for the athletes’ breach-of-contract theory, including the argument that they could enforce NCAA obligations as intended third-party beneficiaries. The injunction was later stayed during the NCAA’s appeal.

Compare that with Trotter v. NCAA.

Fourteen athletes from Marshall and Ohio University brought claims in federal court in West Virginia, including federal antitrust claims and a theory that the athletes were third-party beneficiaries of the contractual relationship between the NCAA and its member institutions.

U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers denied preliminary relief.

Why?

One major reason had nothing to do with whether the NCAA’s transition line seemed intuitively fair.

It was West Virginia contract law.

West Virginia permits a nonparty to enforce a contract as a third-party beneficiary only under unusually restrictive circumstances: the contract must be made for that third party’s “sole benefit.”

Chambers concluded that NCAA bylaws plainly benefit more than athletes. They also govern institutions, conferences, athletics personnel, and the broader association.

So the athletes were unlikely to succeed on that theory.

The court expressly contrasted West Virginia law with the more permissive third-party-beneficiary rules applied in the Tennessee, Georgia, and Ohio cases.

That is not judicial chaos.

That is federalism.

A national association has constructed its governance system through contracts with hundreds of member institutions. Once athletes begin enforcing those contracts in state courts, state contract law becomes part of national college-sports governance.

The result almost guarantees variation.

Federal antitrust law might seem like the obvious path toward one national answer.

It is not that simple.

Wisne demonstrates what a strong preliminary antitrust record can accomplish.

Trotter demonstrates what happens when the record is different.

Judge Chambers agreed with the athletes on an important threshold proposition: denying eligibility can restrain commerce because modern college athletes participate in labor markets involving NIL and revenue-sharing compensation. He therefore subjected the rule to Sherman Act scrutiny.

But antitrust scrutiny is not antitrust liability.

Under the rule of reason, plaintiffs carry a substantial evidentiary burden. They generally must establish a relevant market and show meaningful anticompetitive effects.

The Trotter plaintiffs defined sport-specific Division I labor markets. Chambers concluded that their evidence did not adequately establish those markets or market-wide anticompetitive effects. That was enough to defeat their request for a preliminary injunction.

The contrast with Wisne is strategically important.

An athlete cannot simply walk into court, cite NCAA v. Alston, say “eligibility affects my earning power,” and expect an injunction.

Market definition matters.

Economic evidence matters.

The precise theory matters.

The evidentiary record matters.

And because emergency eligibility cases are litigated at extraordinary speed, the ability to assemble that record before a season begins may determine the practical outcome.

That produces another kind of inequality:

not merely geography, but litigation capacity.

Athletes with experienced counsel, a developed economic record, institutional support, and a favorable procedural vehicle are better positioned to obtain relief than similarly situated athletes who do not have those things.

That is the strategic shift the conventional discussion misses.

The NCAA’s new model was designed in part to eliminate many individualized waiver categories.

The association wanted fewer exceptions, fewer hardship determinations, and more predictable eligibility decisions. Its own guidance says the new system should be more consistent and easier for schools to administer.

But if the administrative waiver disappears while judicial review expands, discretion does not disappear.

It migrates.

Instead of asking NCAA staff for an eligibility waiver, an athlete asks a judge for Rule 65 relief.

The relevant questions change:

Is there irreparable harm?

Is there a likelihood of success?

Which state’s contract law applies?

Can the case be filed where the athlete lives, attends school, or experiences the injury?

Can counsel obtain an ex parte TRO before Saturday?

Will an appellate court stay it?

Can the athlete post the required bond?

Can the school safely roster the player while an appeal remains pending?

The rule may be national.

The remedy is becoming local.

Ordinary litigation can tolerate time.

Sports cannot.

Suppose an athlete eventually proves in April 2027 that the NCAA wrongfully denied eligibility for the 2026 season.

That victory may be legally satisfying and practically worthless.

You cannot replay September.

A senior athlete cannot recover the lost starts, television exposure, playoff opportunity, draft tape, NIL value, revenue-sharing compensation, or developmental time associated with an entire season.

That is why irreparable harm has so much strategic importance in eligibility cases—and why preliminary rulings often function like final judgments even though they technically are not.

A TRO lasting ten days can determine whether a football player appears in two games.

A preliminary injunction lasting three months can effectively determine a basketball season.

An appellate stay entered the night before competition can do the reverse.

Procedure becomes substance because the clock is part of the injury.

The uncertainty does not stop with the athlete.

A coach cannot construct a roster around abstract appellate doctrine.

Schools need to know who can practice, travel, receive aid, receive revenue-sharing payments, sign NIL deals, occupy roster slots, and play.

Arizona’s September 11 decision to add Mahdi, Harris, and Moon after obtaining a TRO was not merely legal compliance. It was a competitive personnel decision days before a ranked conference game.

Basketball presents the same problem over a longer horizon.

Denzel Aberdeen filed his own Florida action on September 11 after initially benefiting from Wisne and then losing that protection when the Tenth Circuit issued its stay.

Florida has to prepare for November while not knowing whether a player expected to occupy a major role will ultimately be eligible.

That uncertainty affects more than rotations.

A fifth-year player occupies opportunities that otherwise go to somebody else.

Scholarship and revenue-sharing allocations must be made.

Transfer decisions have already happened.

Incoming freshmen were recruited under assumptions about roster availability.

Collectives and commercial partners may have negotiated around expected playing status.

This is the NCAA’s strongest practical argument against retroactive expansion, and it should not be dismissed.

There is a tendency to treat every Class-of-2022 plaintiff as obviously entitled to the new rule because giving athletes five seasons beginning one class later feels arbitrary.

But transition rules always draw lines.

Someone is almost always the last person governed by the old system.

The NCAA can fairly argue that Class-of-2022 athletes received exactly what the bylaws promised when they competed: up to four seasons under the former structure.

The new framework was enacted prospectively.

Giving an additional season to athletes whose eligibility had already expired would impose costs on athletes who planned around the published transition rule, including younger players expecting roster spots, financial aid, playing time, and revenue-sharing opportunities.

Division II made this rationale explicit when adopting its corresponding age-based model, warning that retroactive eligibility could disrupt roster positions and financial-aid decisions already made for incoming athletes.

That is a real governance concern.

And courts are generally reluctant to substitute their own sports-policy preferences for those of private associations merely because a different rule might appear fairer.

The strongest Class-of-2022 cases therefore cannot rest on “five would be nicer than four.”

They have to identify a legally cognizable defect: anticompetitive restraint, contractual bad faith, arbitrary association action under applicable state law, consumer-protection violation, or some other enforceable limitation on the NCAA’s discretion.

That is precisely why jurisdiction matters so much.

The NCAA understands the danger of fragmented litigation.

It has asked the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to centralize a group of federal eligibility cases through multidistrict litigation. The JPML is scheduled to hear matters at its September 24 session in Chicago.

Centralization could help.

One judge could coordinate discovery.

Duplicative expert work could be reduced.

Common legal questions could be handled more consistently.

The NCAA would face less risk of simultaneously litigating the same federal antitrust theory in a dozen district courts.

But MDL cannot fully solve this problem.

It does not vacuum state-court cases into federal court simply because they concern the same NCAA rule.

The Kentucky TRO can continue in Kentucky.

The Indiana case can continue in Indiana.

Arizona can address Arizona plaintiffs.

Georgia appellate courts can interpret Georgia injunctions.

State-law contract theories will continue to depend on state law.

That is the structural feature that makes this litigation unusually difficult to centralize.

Even if the NCAA succeeds in consolidating the federal antitrust cases, a parallel state-court eligibility system can remain.

“Forum shopping” often sounds pejorative.

Here it is largely predictable behavior.

If an athlete has one remaining season, every lost week matters.

If one jurisdiction has rejected a theory but another permits it, competent counsel will examine whether the athlete has a legitimate basis to proceed in the more favorable forum.

If federal market-definition requirements create a difficult evidentiary burden, a state contract theory may be more attractive.

If a nationwide injunction disappears, an individual TRO becomes more valuable.

If appellate courts are moving slowly, a state judge capable of hearing an emergency motion tomorrow becomes strategically important.

None of that means every forum is proper or every claim is meritorious.

It means the incentives created by the system point strongly toward decentralized emergency litigation.

The NCAA can criticize that result.

But until there is a binding national answer, athletes have little reason not to pursue it.

A fifth season has substantial economic value.

For some athletes, it may mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in NIL or revenue sharing.

For others, it may mean one final opportunity to create professional film.

And unlike ordinary monetary litigation, waiting patiently for appellate clarity can itself destroy the thing being litigated.

This is why the Class-of-2022 fight matters beyond the Class of 2022.

The NCAA’s new rule will eventually reduce this particular transition dispute.

The structural lesson will remain.

College sports increasingly operates through overlapping sources of authority:

NCAA legislation.

Conference rules.

School contracts.

Settlement agreements.

Federal antitrust law.

State NIL statutes.

State contract law.

State consumer law.

And courts willing to intervene when athletes claim those systems conflict.

The NCAA still writes national rules.

But writing a national rule no longer guarantees a national outcome.

That is a profound change in how private sports governance works.

For most of its history, NCAA eligibility disputes were largely internal administrative matters.

Today, an adverse eligibility determination can become commercial litigation because athletes have compensation rights, schools have multimillion-dollar competitive incentives, and courts increasingly recognize that rules governing who may participate also govern access to economic markets.

The courthouse is becoming part of roster management.

That is not a stable equilibrium.

Three developments matter most.

First, the appellate courts.

The Tenth Circuit’s eventual decision in Wisne could substantially influence the federal antitrust analysis, although it will not automatically resolve independent state-law claims around the country.

Georgia, Ohio, and other appellate proceedings can likewise determine whether trial-court injunctions survive closer review.

Second, consolidation.

The September 24 JPML proceeding will show whether the federal judiciary begins pulling the sprawling federal eligibility cases into a more coordinated structure. Even successful centralization, however, leaves the state-court problem intact.

Third—and perhaps most important—the NCAA itself.

At some point, the association must compare the cost of defending the transition line with the cost of changing it.

That calculation is not simply legal.

A broader grandfather rule would create roster disruption and extend careers the NCAA believed were finished.

But maintaining the current policy means continued emergency litigation, inconsistent rulings, appellate costs, uncertainty for schools, and the possibility that judges rather than the association will determine eligibility one athlete at a time.

The NCAA adopted the new model because it wanted eligibility to be simpler.

The Class of 2022 is demonstrating the uncomfortable limit of that project:

A rule can be simple on paper and still become unpredictable once everyone has a courthouse.

The most important question in the Class-of-2022 litigation is no longer merely whether those athletes should receive a fifth season.

It is who gets to decide.

The NCAA says its transition rule supplies one national answer.

Courts are increasingly supplying others.

And because a sports season disappears faster than an appeal can be decided, temporary judicial orders are not staying temporary in any meaningful competitive sense.

One player gets another season.

Another loses his injunction.

A third stays eligible because a hearing moves three days.

That is not just litigation surrounding college sports.

For the moment, the litigation is helping determine who gets to play college sports.