The NCAA’s new eligibility rules are less than a week old and already facing legal challenges.
Attorneys Ryan Downton and Darren Heitner are attempting to remedy what they see as unfair treatment of the high school class of 2022 through lawsuits, including one reportedly filed last week in Hamilton County, Ohio, on behalf of 15 men’s basketball players.
Their essential contention is that players who began their collegiate careers in 2022 and played four straight seasons should have the opportunity to get a fifth rather than get excluded from the new rules — which, as a reminder, will give an athlete five years to play five seasons, beginning either upon their enrollment in college or the first school year following their 19th birthday, whichever happens first. At the moment, those who are still in college or are beginning their careers this coming season can choose which eligibility model they prefer, but those who have just exhausted their eligibility under the old model are out of luck.
Needless to say, the results of this litigation will have a significant impact on how college sports unfold in the 2026-27 academic year.
In the meantime, there has been plenty more time to consider the potential consequences of what the NCAA Division I Cabinet has already put into effect. Here are four more ways that the five-in-five eligibility rules could impact KU sports.
— Javon Bardwell, a 6-foot-6 five-star wing from Overtime Elite committed to KU men’s basketball in the class of 2027, was long rumored as a potential reclassification candidate to join the Jayhawks for 2026-27. But the rumblings have gotten quieter and quieter as the offseason has proceeded, and the whole enterprise seemed to become moot when Tyran Stokes signed for 2026, limiting Bardwell’s path to prospective playing time if he were to join as well.
It turns out that Bardwell might miss out on a fifth year of eligibility as a result. He is already 19, according to OTE’s website, meaning that his five-year clock begins this coming fall, so if he shows up in Lawrence in the fall of 2027 he’ll only have four years to play four.
Of course, that might be a pointless distinction regardless. As such a highly touted player, he seems unlikely to spend four years in college, let alone five.
Bardwell, by the way, averaged 17.9 points and 6.8 rebounds for RWE in the OTE regular season last year; he was teammates with current KU point guard Taylen Kinney. Bardwell was also recently named to the all-tournament team at Adidas Eurocamp in Treviso, Italy, where in one of his games he scored 25 points on 11-for-19 shooting with seven boards.
— This potential issue doesn’t seem to have received much discussion in the days since the NCAA approved the new eligibility model, but consider the case of an athlete who has suffered a severe injury during spring practice or summer workouts, one that could potentially cause them to miss the 2026-27 season. Say that athlete is a redshirt senior in their fifth season. Under the previous model, after sitting out the entire year, that athlete would apply for a medical waiver — one quite likely to be granted — and then get another chance in 2027-28.
Well, now the NCAA is requiring that “schools must submit any season-of-competition or eligibility clock extension waiver requests based on circumstances that occurred during or before the 2025-26 academic year — and all supporting documentation — to the national office no later than July 31, 2026.” A school can’t exactly ask for a waiver for someone who hasn’t even missed the season yet — maybe they’ll get healthy before it’s over, after all. And after July 31, waivers will be abolished. That doesn’t seem like a topic on which the NCAA will be flexible. Even if the affected athlete declares that they are choosing to use the old model — again, anyone competing in 2026-27 can pick the more favorable eligibility model for them — the waiver approval mechanism will no longer exist except in cases of pregnancy, military service or religious missions.
In short, it’s possible that an athlete who suffered an injury prior to the approval of these new rules could essentially have their career ended by their implementation.
— In a previous article on this topic I commented that the removal of redshirts will allow coaches to make freshmen more regular contributors in football — for example, assign them full-time positions on special-teams units instead of dropping them in for a select few games — and to deploy them at all in other sports when they might not see the field otherwise.
From the KU football 2026 class, some players that come to mind in this vein are wide receiver Corbin Glasco, whom position coach Terrence Samuel called a “flat-out blur” during spring practice and could likely provide some kind of utility on special teams, as well as tight ends Kevin Sullivan and Jack Utz and linebackers Joseph Credit and Josh Galbreath.
In men’s basketball, the primary beneficiaries will likely be center Grant Mordini and forward Atticus Richmond, the unheralded freshmen toward the back end of the roster who would likely have sat out the entire season under normal circumstances but now can appear in mop-up duty as needed. It’s hard to say if anyone from the rest of KU’s recruiting class, like Luke Barnett or Trent Perry, would have redshirted — head coach Bill Self has said the freshmen will compete for the rotation — but now it doesn’t matter anyway since they can all get more on-court experience without issue.
Many other sports at KU, such as volleyball and women’s basketball, have freshman classes with players who were expected to be immediate contributors regardless. The volleyball team in particular is relying on its first-year players, particularly as pin hitters, so the lack of redshirts won’t affect it much.
Track and field eligibility figures to get a lot simpler, since in plenty of cases KU athletes have redshirted during the indoor season and not the outdoor, or vice versa, prolonging their careers in the process. Some have even competed unattached while redshirting. Now they can just compete for their team straight through.
— Roster management could get awkward for a year, particularly in sports that fill their recruiting classes extremely far in advance.
In some sports, it’s not at all uncommon for prospects to commit in the days following the first moments at which coaches are allowed to contact recruits directly — June 15 following their sophomore seasons. (Just take a look at how quickly KU soccer and volleyball have already been earning 2028 commitments in recent weeks.) Many coaching staffs have had a pretty good idea of which recruits they will be taking in 2027 for about a year. Now they will have to recalibrate in light of the fact that some of the players who were slated to exit are in fact going to be able to stick around for a year longer.
This doesn’t have as much of an effect on sports that tend to get commitments on shorter timetables — basketball comes to mind — and in any case the five-year eligibility rules have been in the works for a while, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if teams across the country had built somewhat smaller 2027 classes in preparation for such developments.
Some, though, may have to adapt on the fly, so don’t be surprised if not every 2027 commitment ends up making it to campus. This hasn’t been a visible trend for KU to this point. But on Thursday, three separate softball players who had been intending to attend the University of Memphis announced in rapid succession that they had been “involuntarily de-committed” due to the new rules. Coaches around the country will likely have to have some tough conversations if they foresee their current players sticking around for extra seasons. It’ll be worth keeping an eye out to see if KU has to make any cuts to its projected classes.
