The NCAA is considering a rule that would give athletes a five-year window to compete starting at age 19 or upon high school graduation, eliminating redshirts and most waiver exceptions.
The idea seems simple: one five-year clock for everyone. No extra seasons, no complicated exceptions, fewer lawsuits and less confusion. The proposal would also limit athletes to one transfer in their first four years, tightening athlete movement.
Even U.S. President Donald Trump has floated similar ideas aimed at limiting transfers and restructuring eligibility windows, signaling widespread pressure to simplify college sports transfer and eligibility regulations.
But simplicity comes at a cost.
This proposed rule could impact athletes who do not follow a clean, straight path and those who transfer, get injured, sit behind veterans or simply take more time to develop. Not every career fits neatly into a neat timeline from freshman year to graduation.
A system meant to reduce confusion may make college sports less adaptable to reality.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the NCAA’s decision to consider eligibility rule changes was related to cases like that of former Indiana safety Louis Moore, who was involved in a legal dispute with the NCAA after the organization ruled he was ineligible to play in Indiana football’s 2025 season due to transfer and eligibility rules. Moore argued that the NCAA’s decision unfairly limited his ability to play and effectively denied him opportunities, so he filed a lawsuit challenging their ruling. He was granted a temporary injunction to finish the season.
The situation escalated because Moore had already participated in games for Indiana while his eligibility was in question. In response, the NCAA threatened a rule of restitution, which would have required Indiana to vacate wins from games in which Moore played if he was ultimately ruled ineligible.
Moore’s case is far from unique. It’s part of a growing wave of lawsuits against the NCAA over eligibility rules. Former Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia’s 2024 lawsuit helped spark this trend, as a federal judge granted him an injunction to play while challenging how the NCAA counts junior college seasons toward eligibility.
Those situations are frustrating for everyone involved, and it is understandable why the NCAA would want to eliminate them.
But in trying to remove those gray areas, the NCAA risks removing something else too, fairness in response to circumstance.
Extended college careers don’t come from a lack of rules. They come from a broken method where exceptions, waivers, redshirts and special eligibility rulings can stack on top of an already structured five-year clock. A player might redshirt one season, miss another due to injury, receive a medical hardship waiver or even benefit from broader eligibility extensions like the COVID-era rule.
Add those together, and a college career can stretch well beyond what most people think of as a normal timeline, not because the rules are absent but because they are layered and case specific.
At the same time, this is not an argument for endless eligibility, nine-year college careers or a system filled with constant transfers and waiver requests. There has to be a limit, but the current structure goes too far in one direction, and the NCAA proposed rule goes too far in the other.
If the NCAA wants to simplify eligibility without hurting athletes, the answer is not to erase flexibility entirely, but to reduce the reliance on constant exceptions.
Instead of a system defined by waivers, redshirts and case-by-case rulings, or one defined by a strict and unforgiving clock, the better approach is something in between. It should be predictable without being rigid, preserving some protection for injuries and development but not requiring endless appeals or special rulings to function.
The goal should not be to eliminate flexibility or preserve every exception, but to replace a confusing patchwork of rulings with a small number of clear, universal rules that apply to everyone the same way.
No one has come up with a great solution but let me have a go at it.
A possible solution could be four seasons of eligibility within a five-year window that includes a guaranteed redshirt year, one transfer and any additional transfers carrying consequences.
Right now, the NCAA is trying to streamline college sports. But if it removes too much flexibility in the process, it will be athletes who pay the price for that simplicity.
Jack Davis (he/him) is a junior majoring in media with a sports concentration and pursuing a minor in folklore and ethnomusicology and a certificate in journalism.
