There could be a significant change coming to college sports.
The NCAA is weighing a proposal that would allow for five years of eligibility based upon an athlete’s high school graduation or 19th birthday (whichever comes first would be the standard), sources told CBS Sports. There would be limited exceptions for things like military, religious missions and maternity leave. Yahoo Sports first reported the development.
Less than a week ago President Trump issued an executive order that directed the NCAA to create rules in which athletes can play for “no more than a five-year period” and limited them to one free transfer before sitting out a season. This age-eligibility proposal was in the works before Trump’s executive order, according to sources, though it lines up with President Trump’s overarching request and will go to the NCAA’s powerful Division I cabinet for discussion.
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Why it matters
The NCAA has faced a barrage of eligibility-related lawsuits in recent years. With the arrival of big NIL and revenue share money, it’s no surprise that athletes are interested in prolonging their collegiate careers to cash in while they can. Just this offseason, there have been two important eligibility cases within the SEC — one of which worked for Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss and one which didn’t for Tennessee’s Joey Aguilar. In Virginia, quarterback Chandler Morris’ attempt for a seventh season was recently denied in circuit court.
While the facts behind all those cases aren’t the case, it has raised concerns for inconsistent rulings depending on the trial’s locale. As Scott Schneider, a Title IX and employment attorney, pointed out to CBS Sports during the Charles Bediako lawsuit, there is a “real structural problem for how the NCAA is organized.” Due to the NCAA’s unincorporated association structure, it is technically a citizen in each state where it has a member institution. That makes it vulnerable to state courts that may be more friendly to the local university than the national NCAA organization. As Schneider put it, “If I can file a case in a favorable forum, I’m probably going to get a good result.”
In theory, this rule would eliminate a lot of those headaches for the NCAA. Of course, it could still be legally challenged, and we are right back where we started if the NCAA gets a bad result. As college sports attorney Mit Winter posted, “the important question is whether it can withstand antitrust challenge.”
But a uniform eligibility rule takes the NCAA out of a world rife with inconsistencies and bad PR. Once those five years of eligibility are up, even if they’ve been impacted by injury, the player’s career would be over. There would be no more Cam McCormick type stories, a football player who started his career at Oregon in 2016 and finished at Miami in 2024. McCormick missed parts of four seasons due to injury plus a blanket COVID-19 waiver gave him an unprecedented ninth year of eligibility.
There is not a hard timeline on how long it could take to go from a proposal to passed legislation but multiple sources expressed optimism to CBS Sports that this could be successfully passed.
Impact on college basketball
Due to the rising money involved in college football, it’s natural to view this rule through that lens. Especially with high-profile quarterbacks like Chambliss and Morris wanting to spend an extra year in the sport and make millions for their efforts.
But it also could have a significant impact on an increasingly popular trend in college basketball: The recruitment of European players.
With the high school graduation or 19th birthday starting the clock, it could impact European players coming over to the United States to cash in on the exploding salaries for top college players. Illinois rode a wave of European players known as the “Balkan Five” to the Final Four last weekend. One of those players, Mihailo Petrovic, enrolled as a 22-year-old, and the NCAA labeled him as a sophomore. If the new rule passed, he’d be coming to Illinois with only two years of eligibility left. There are some around college basketball skeptical of the listed ages of European players, as well, and would like to see additional scrunity if this rule passes.
It could also slow down a trend of players being held back to arrive at college at an older age. While there are players who reclassify to arrive at college early, there are plenty who move back a year earlier in their educational career so they can arrive on campus as a 20-year old freshman. The value in that strategy would take a hit under these guidelines.
