The NCAA has revised its confusing eligibility rules, leaving some students caught between the old and new systems with lawsuits as their only recourse.

Courts across the country have reached different results in such cases, even though the athletes are in similar positions. This means that some athletes are able to play while others are not, and roster composition can turn on which court addressed a particular case, leaving some schools and conferences at a disadvantage.

Students who entered college in 2018 through 2021 effectively received five years of eligibility thanks to COVID-era relief. The old rules allowed athletes to have five years of eligibility, though they could only play four seasons within that window, which is why some schools designated students as “red shirt” freshmen. Students who were injured for a season also had the chance to make up that lost season within the five-year eligibility window. 

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a nonprofit organization that sets the rules for student sports in colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada, including student eligibility. The NCAA did not respond to a Just the News inquiry.

The new age-based framework, adopted in the summer of 2026, allows athletes who entered college in 2023 and after to also receive a five-year opportunity, but they can no longer request waivers to extend that eligibility. This leaves a notable gap for students who entered college in 2022, who are stuck between old rules governing eligibility (four seasons of playing within five years), but also disallowing them to seek waivers under the new rules.

Lawsuits for the forgotten class of 2022 don’t always work

For the class that enrolled in 2022, the only remedy for the lack of coherent rules has been to file lawsuits, with mixed results. In the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in Ohio, state court judges determined the 2022 entering class rules to be “arbitrary and capricious,” entering an injunction against the new NCAA rules that would ensure the affected athletes could play. But the First District Court of Appeals in Ohio pushed a “stay,” essentially pausing the lower court ruling and leaving the athletes who sued in limbo. On Oct. 2, 2026, the First District reversed the lower court’s injunction, arguing the trial court “abused its discretion.”

That case involved Xavier University basketball player Filip Borovicanin and University of Cincinnati basketball player MJ Collins, among others, who sued the NCAA because they were still in college but excluded from the NCAA’s grace period allowing players to play all five years of their eligibility, instead of four seasons within five years. 

Borovicanin and the students argued that the new rules unfairly limited the high school class of 2022 from receiving a fifth year to play, even though they had to bear the burden of Covid-19 eligibility waivers during their college careers. The judge agreed, and issued the injunction in July 2026.

The NCAA blasted the decision, saying the court “disregarded over a century of precedent and substituted its own judgment, on a limited factual record, for the collective expertise of the nation’s leading higher education institutions.”

The NCAA appealed, resulting in the stay from the First District in August 2026 and the reversal in October.

Inconsistent rules across state lines, "unfair" to Div. II and III student-athletes

In other districts, athletes have been able to play because other courts issued injunctions that allowed them to play without a higher court staying the decision. This has been the case for students in Indiana and New York.

“The short version here is that some students and teams are currently benefiting from these injunctions while others are not, and that distorts the playing field, and none of this would be necessary if NCAA had simply applied its rules evenly to the 2022 Cohort from the beginning,” Jacob Meckler, an attorney representing some student athletes, told Just the News.

In September, Emory University basketball player Benjamin Pearce filed a class action lawsuit in New York arguing that Division II and III student athletes who entered college in 2022 should be given a fifth year of playing eligibility. The New York State Supreme Court (which is not the highest court in the state) of Westchester County granted Pearce the injunction on Oct. 2.

Dozens of athletes filed lawsuits in Indiana in September, including Indiana University football players Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt, challenging the NCAA rules. On Sept. 23, a Monroe Circuit Court judge granted an injunction, making the players eligible to play.

In that case, the NCAA argued that describing its new system as “five for five” was inaccurate because eligibility depends on an athlete’s age and enrollment history, adding that it does not guarantee each athlete five seasons, The Bloomingtonian reported.

NCAA’s shifting goal posts

The NCAA initially announced on X that its new eligibility policy would only apply going forward and not benefit athletes whose eligibility ended in spring 2026.

“Student-athletes who will exhaust their eligibility this year have received the full period of eligibility permitted by NCAA bylaws and the life-changing benefits college sports provides. Giving those student-athletes another season would destabilize rosters just ahead of the coming season by disrupting settled expectations of countless student-athletes regarding their expected roster spots and playing time next year, including incoming freshmen who are eager to participate in the life-changing experience of college athletics,” the NCAA said in June 2026.

The organization also said that the new rules would be included in the 2026-2027 Division I Manual.

Eligibility will be "primarily age-based"

The NCAA also explained its position in an affidavit filed in a lawsuit against the organization and reviewed by Just the News. The organization also said that the new rules would be included in the 2026-2027 Division I Manual.

“Under the new model, NCAA eligibility will be primarily age-based. Student-athletes may receive a five-year eligibility period beginning at the start of the academic year following their 19th birthday or upon full-time enrollment at a collegiate institution, whichever comes sooner, and student-athletes may compete during that five-year period of eligibility provided they meet all other eligibility requirements. Waivers have been eliminated under these new rules other than in clearly defined cases involving pregnancy, military service, and religious missions,” the NCAA said in court documents.

But the Division I Manual didn’t exclude the class that entered college in 2022 when stating the new rules.

As the judge in the Indiana injunction wrote: “Under the plain terms of the 2026-27 NCAA Manual, they are eligible to compete.”