How NCAA Athlete Eligibility Limbo Has Sown ‘Actual Chaos’

As a college sports coach, it’s almost always reasonable to assume a Friday night in late July will be an off-night. No one is in season since football training camps don’t start until August, rosters and revenue-sharing budgets are set, and there’s no transfer portal window to obsessively track. 

But on Friday, July 31 at about 7 p.m. ET, Colorado district court judge Charlotte Sweeney granted a preliminary injunction in the case Wisne v. NCAA, which upended college sports. The ruling essentially forced the NCAA to immediately allow all players who entered college in 2022, but who had exhausted four years of eligibility, a fifth year to compete. 

Thousands of players immediately became eligible to join an NCAA team in every sport.

“I think I found out how everyone else found out—social media. Someone texting me a Twitter link,” one SEC football GM told Front Office Sports, who added that not only were they off duty, but their compliance directors were away on vacation. Another source in the athlete-compensation space told FOS they were “hanging out with coaches” Friday night when “things were afoot.”  

Their once-quiet evenings now turned upside down, coaches in virtually every sport scrambled to determine how the late-night ruling could give them an unprecedented roster opportunity. Agents raced to market players they thought wouldn’t have another shot at NCAA sports. NIL operators sprang into action, brainstorming how to fund extra players. 

The NCAA is using every possible avenue to reverse the ruling. “We are working to restore the status quo as soon as possible, because the status quo represented the considered judgement of the membership about what was best for all student-athletes, including the many thousands already on campus who are just starting their college athletics careers,” NCAA chief legal officer Scott Bearby wrote in a memo to members Aug. 4.

But in the meantime, the mad dash has continued, sources said, and the chaos shows no signs of slowing.

“One Conversation, to the Next, to the Next”

The latest round of eligibility upheaval began in June, when the NCAA implemented a new “age-based” eligibility policy. Players now have five years to complete five seasons—rather than four—starting on their 19th birthday or when they enroll in college, whichever comes first. The NCAA said the rule, effective immediately, would not apply to players who graduated high school and entered college in 2022 and had already completed four years of eligibility.

Players in the high school class of 2022 then filed a flood of lawsuits. Several have already been successful—but as state-level lawsuits, they apply to the players who signed on only as plaintiffs. But the Colorado case, a proposed class-action filed in federal court, left the door open to a ruling that would force the NCAA to allow all these athletes an extra year. That’s exactly what happened.

For virtually the entire industry, the weekend was a blur. “From Friday night to Saturday late dinner and early Sunday morning coffee, it was one conversation, to the next, to the next,” the athlete-compensation source said.

The SEC GM described getting inundated with texts and calls from agents within minutes of the ruling, adding “every single one of them thinks they have a special interpretation of the ruling that is different that would allow their client to be eligible.” The GM instructed the team to “start compiling lists” of potentially eligible players, so that they could hit the ground running once they got clarity.

Then, on Sunday evening, Judge Sweeney filed another motion, stipulating a whole new set of rules. 

The clarification said that while the NCAA couldn’t stop the 2022 class from a fifth year of eligibility, it could continue to enforce all its other restrictions. Athletes who had signed professional contracts, including participating in NFL training camps or signing two-way NBA deals, wouldn’t be eligible; neither would athletes over the age of 24 (the new limit set by the NCAA’s eligibility policy). 

Plus, the ruling didn’t open up a new transfer portal, and the NCAA’s “ghost transfer” rule disallowing any player not officially in the portal to transfer, and penalizing coaches who signed one, was still in effect. So, players’ options were limited to the team they were on in 2025–26. 

Not every team can benefit from this new open season: Many have already hit the roster limit for the upcoming season. But even for teams that have open roster spots, rev-share limits mean they’ll have to find external name, image, and likeness opportunities to lure players to their programs (the GM said their administration had met earlier this week to discuss this exact conundrum).

One of the many examples of these complications is the situation facing former Robert Morris women’s basketball player Aislin Malcolm. Last year, the 23-year-old was a team captain, started all 30 games, and won all-conference honors. 

Now, she can return—except Robert Morris has told her they have no roster spot for her, Malcolm said in a sworn affidavit. “I have received an offer from another NCAA Division I women’s basketball program to play for them. This offer includes a scholarship and NIL money.” But because of the NCAA transfer restriction, she’s stuck.

“Just a Shit Show”

Sources who spoke to FOS agreed the NCAA did not handle the situation properly, and it could’ve been avoided if the organization had handled the implementation of the new policy differently—whether they waited until the 2026–27 school year began to implement the policy to avoid the class of 2022 conundrum, or implemented it in June but allowed the class of 2022 players a fifth year from the start. 

“I poo-poo a lot of the chaos talk,” said sports attorney Darren Heitner, who wasn’t involved in the Colorado case, but who is litigating several state-eligibility lawsuits on behalf of the high school class of 2022. “But this shit is actual chaos. And once again, it’s the doing of the NCAA.”

But hindsight doesn’t benefit anyone in the current situation. Plaintiff attorneys have filed a motion requesting the judge to reconsider her clarifications, arguing the NCAA would use its other intact restrictions to effectively prevent players from getting the fifth year that their injunction granted. Meanwhile, the NCAA has initiated the formal appeal process.

To date, most teams have decided to wait to add players until they get clarity, sources said, even though they have no idea when that will be. 

“Behind the scenes, [we’re] acting like we need to add people,” the GM said. “But [we’re] not pushing go until we have a final ruling. People are understanding that this is just a shit show.”