Recent transfer receiver addition Tray Taylor and former Auburn basketball star forward Keyshawn Hall were both part of the 2022 cycle of student-athletes left out of the NCAA’s new fifth year of eligibility rules. They are now racing to the courts to file their own temporary restraining order against the NCAA to gain one more year of eligibility.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the NCAA’s request for a stay against the recent injunction in the Wisne v. NCAA case. That was the Colorado ruling that allowed all players from the class of 2022 to play if they had not yet exhausted their college eligibility. That ruling came after the NCAA created its new fifth-year rule that was adopted in June of this year.
This directly affects these two players who fit the description of what the Wisne v. NCAA case was supposed to protect. Especially Taylor, who started his career at Tyler Junior College in 2022. Now all they have to do is go to a judge who may or may not be an alumnus, but a judge who will agree with their filing, and boom. It is law. There should be no reason to worry about either of these players not being allowed to play, because the NCAA has rolled over and died so many times that they would have to essentially do this to every single TRO filing that comes out.
ESPN’s Dan Murphy clarified that point:
“The stay does not wipe out the dozens of athletes who have successfully petitioned for restraining orders to play a fifth season in state courts around the country. The appeals court decision could spark more lawsuits, restraining order requests and confusion with only two weeks remaining before college football season begins in full force. Bearby said in his letter that the NCAA plans to "expeditiously" fight against other legal rulings that have allowed similarly situated players back into college sports.”
Which is exactly what it looks like the NCAA intends to do with potentially each one of these TROs that are filed with what should seem like every state.
LSU may have lit the powder keg
It looks like LSU really ruffled some feathers after their quest to let former Tiger and now Tampa Bay Buccaneer EDGE Jack Pyburn and others come back to play college ball. It’s understandable. Lane Kiffin was obviously always going to weaponize the NIL by doing something with a loophole others didn’t think about.
Now we've seen what happened a few days ago with LSU, and, coincidentally, this 10th Circuit Court ruling happens just a couple of days later. Knowing that Kiffin is beating them to death with their own rules might force the NCAA to fight harder than ever now that one court ruling has gone their way.
But there will be more lawsuits and court filings to happen, and the NCAA will not be able to stop them. Not without completely tearing down the entire rulebook of college sports. To which, even if they did manage to somehow figure out a way to reconstruct the rules, they won’t truly be legal because internal bylaws in a private entity have no effect on state and federal laws.
As Captain Hector Barbosa would say about the pirates' code, they’re more like guidelines than actual rules.
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