ANALYSIS: What the NCAA '5-for-5' and Trans Athletes Controversies Have in Common

What these pro players are trying to do is blatantly unfair to current college athletes and threatens to turn the transfer portal into a fallback option for mediocre athletes who wash out of the pros.

John Rigolizzo

Published: 8/28/2026, 12:59:18 PM EDT

ANALYSIS: What the NCAA '5-for-5' and Trans Athletes Controversies Have in Common — The NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis is seen on March 12, 2020. (Michael Conroy/AP Photo)

Several professional athletes have announced plans to return to college after courts granted players a fifth year of eligibility.

In June, the NCAA Division I cabinet approved rules that would give student-athletes up to five years of eligibility to play sports, provided they enroll in college before the academic year of their 19th birthday. The new rule eliminated the old rule, which only granted four years of eligibility in a five-year period. The rules apply to student-athletes who have eligibility remaining as of the 2025-26 academic year on a case-by-case basis, and will be fully implemented in 2027.

A group of college basketball and baseball players filed a class-action lawsuit in the Northern District of Colorado seeking to halt the implementation of those rules on an antitrust basis, and allow the players to play a fifth season of their respective sports. Judge Charlotte Sweeney granted the players a preliminary injunction on July 31.

That preliminary injunction opened the floodgates for players to begin the process of returning to play in the NCAA. The College Sports Litigation Tracker has identified 21 cases challenging these new rules. At the same time, several former college players were granted a restraining order by a state judge in Louisiana and are planning to play at LSU. Those players are: tight end Dae'Quan Wright, defensive lineman Zxavian Harris, and safety Wydett Williams; current Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Jack Pyburn was also named a plaintiff, as were running backs Anthony Hankerson and T.J. Harden.

On top of that, basketball player RJ Luis Jr. has also secured an injunction allowing him to join the LSU basketball team. Luis went undrafted last season and spent time with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics organizations.

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the injunction last week, but that only affects the Colorado case, not Wright's or any other court order in a separate lawsuit or in the various state courts: the NCAA said in a statement that it plans to contest those rulings.

The new NCAA rules make sense. If an athlete has a five-year eligibility window, he or she should be eligible for all five of those years. On the other hand, the athletes suing for a fifth year make a reasonable argument: it's not fair that they are still in college but unable to play sports because of rules that are no longer in force.

But the players who are trying to go back from the professional ranks are doing a serious disservice to the college game. They have already trained like professional athletes, competed against professional athletes, and lived the life of a professional athlete. It's more than reasonable to assume they would have a significant leg up on an underclassman just getting his start in the college ranks. Moreover, having more experience in college after playing a full 4 seasons, coaches who might get these players to commit are more likely to give them opportunities that would otherwise go to younger players.

There is another NCAA controversy we can look to to get a sense of how this could play out. In 2019, University of Pennsylvania swimmer William Thomas ranked 554th in the nation in the 200-meter freestyle, 65th in the 500-meter freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650-meter freestyle. After coming out as a transgender woman, "Lia" Thomas won the 2022 NCAA Championship in the 500m freestyle, came fifth in the 200, and eighth in the 100. Thomas won the Ivy League Championships in all three events, and set program records in the 100, 200, 500, 1000, and 1650 freestyle events.

Another example: in 2016 and 2017, Franklin Pierce University runner Craig Telfer ranked 200th and 390th in the 400-meter hurdles among all Division II male runners. After not running in 2018 due to NCAA rules on transgender athletes, "CeCe" Telfer won a national championship in the event.

What these former pros are doing is no different. Here are players who were mediocre at their appropriate level of competition, so they leave and return to the game at a lower level of competition in order to dominate. In both cases, the players who actually belong at that level of competition suffer the consequences.

This time around, the major sports conferences are working to nip the issue in the bud. The Power 4 conferences— the Big Ten, SEC, Big XII and ACC— have already issued statements establishing that players who are drafted or rostered in a professional league are prohibited from playing for a team in their conferences. And the NFL has stated that players who return to college will not be eligible to play in 2026 and would be classified as a free agent in 2027.

Even if it's only for this year, what these pro players are trying to do is blatantly unfair to current college athletes and threatens to turn the transfer portal into a fallback option for mediocre athletes who wash out of the pros. Good on the NCAA and NFL for shutting it down.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.