Federal appeals court hands NCAA a victory in struggle for five-year eligibility rule

Though the win does nothing to tamp down dozens of similar lawsuits playing out in state courts nationwide, DENVER (AP) – Federal appeals court judges handed the NCAA a significant victory in its struggle to implement a new five-year eligibility ruling Friday.

What happened

Ruling in the case Wisne vs. NCAA, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reversed a lower-court decision that had granted players nationwide who graduated high school in 2022 a fifth year of eligibility.

Meanwhile, the lower-court ruling in July went against the NCAA's new rule that granted five years of eligibility, but only starting with athletes from the next year's class. It essentially created all those Class of '22 players eligible, leading to nationwide chaos, with teams looking to sign players who had been relegated to the sideline.

When this same appeals court first put the ruling on hold, plenty of of those players still identified their way onto rosters thanks to favorable rulings in state courts, but in August.

The bottom line

For now, federal appeals court hands NCAA a victory in struggle for five remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.