LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — If you wanted a snapshot of the chaos surrounding college sports eligibility, Friday provided one before lunch.
First, a federal appeals court halted the nationwide injunction that had opened the door for thousands of athletes from the high school Class of 2022 to return for a fifth season of college competition.
Then, in Louisville, Jefferson Circuit Judge Brian Edwards granted a temporary restraining order allowing 13 athletes from that same class to play.
The rulings came from different courts, involved different legal claims and technically do not conflict. Their practical effect, however, is another layer of confusion less than two weeks before the college football season begins.
Consider Louisville's football roster.
D'Angelo Hutchinson, Jabari Mack and Kalib Perry all returned to the Cardinals in recent days after a federal judge in Colorado granted nationwide protection to qualifying Class of 2022 athletes.
As of Friday afternoon, Hutchinson and Mack remain protected because they are plaintiffs in the Louisville lawsuit and covered by Edwards' order.
Perry is not.
Same graduating class. Same football team. Same eligibility issue. Different legal status. And that status could change again.
Welcome to college sports in 2026.
On Friday morning, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit granted the NCAA's request to stay a preliminary injunction issued last month by U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado.
Sweeney's ruling in Wisne v. NCAA had prevented the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility rules against a nationwide class of Division I athletes who began college competition in 2022-23, competed four seasons and otherwise qualified for another season under the NCAA's new five-year eligibility model.
The appeals court did not decide the underlying appeal or permanently reverse Sweeney's decision. But it stopped her injunction from operating while the appeal proceeds.
And the language was significant.
The panel considered four factors, including whether the NCAA had made a strong showing that it was likely to prevail on appeal, whether the NCAA would suffer irreparable harm without a stay, potential harm to the athletes and the public interest.
"We conclude that appellant has satisfied its burden as to each of these factors," the court wrote.
The NCAA left no ambiguity about what it believes that means.
"Effective immediately, the age-based eligibility rules will be implemented as the Division I membership intended," NCAA chief legal officer Scott Bearby said in a statement.
"Class members who were allowed to compete because of the Wisne injunction are no longer eligible to compete."
That means Class of 2022 athletes who exhausted four seasons and returned solely under protection of the Colorado injunction lost their eligibility Friday. Those who have obtained protection from other courts are in a different position.
The NCAA also drew a potentially important line for the schools that use them.
Bearby said institutions will not face violations for using athletes who competed under the Wisne injunction before Friday's stay. The statement offered no such assurance for competition after the stay, an apparent warning that schools continuing to use athletes without separate court protection could face NCAA ramifications.
And now, more athletes are likely to go looking for that protection.
The Tenth Circuit's decision is likely to produce a flurry of new court filings around the country as athletes who had been relying on the Colorado injunction seek individual relief before their seasons begin. The eligibility issue already has produced litigation and differing rulings in numerous states.
The NCAA made clear Friday that it will fight those cases, too.
Bearby said the association will continue defending similar class actions and state-court cases and will "expeditiously appeal" cases in which athletes are granted additional eligibility through separate state-court rulings.
In effect, one nationwide eligibility fight could now splinter into dozens of local ones, with an athlete's ability to play potentially depending upon whether he or she went to court — and which court heard the case.
Louisville supplied an example almost immediately.
Edwards issued a 14-page opinion and order granting emergency relief to 13 athletes challenging NCAA eligibility rules, including Louisville football players Hutchinson and Mack and basketball recruit Mark Mitchell, who has been pursued by Kentucky but is not currently a Wildcats player.
And Edwards went considerably farther than merely allowing them to play a fifth season.
His order prevents the NCAA from enforcing Bylaw 12.6 or any other NCAA bylaw to keep the plaintiffs from competing in Division I during the 2026-27 season because they already have played four seasons.
It also prevents the NCAA from declaring the plaintiffs ineligible because they did not enter the transfer portal and provides protection involving junior-college participation.
Perhaps most significantly, Edwards barred the NCAA from preventing plaintiffs from competing because they signed professional or agent contracts or participated in professional games or practices, provided they terminate those contracts and return money received, except for reasonable and necessary expenses, within seven days.
That provision is particularly important for Mitchell, who played last season at Missouri before pursuing professional basketball. He is seeking another season of college eligibility and has been recruited by Kentucky, which has an open roster spot.
Edwards also prohibited the NCAA from using its Rule of Restitution or so-called "ghost transfer" rule against the plaintiffs, schools or coaches for whom they compete, or even schools and coaches who compete against them.
And he ordered the NCAA to open the transfer portal to the plaintiffs for one week.
Those protections take on added significance in light of the NCAA's statement Friday.
While the NCAA warned that athletes relying solely on Wisne are no longer eligible and guaranteed schools protection only for competition that occurred before the stay, Edwards' order expressly protects schools and coaches from NCAA retaliation for using the plaintiffs covered by his order.
For Louisville, that creates a meaningful difference between Hutchinson and Mack on one hand and Perry on the other.
Those protections also went beyond the Colorado ruling.
In his opinion, Edwards specifically noted that Wisne had not addressed NCAA transfer rules, professional contracts signed by players during periods when they were considered ineligible, or protection for schools that put those athletes on their rosters.
Edwards also rejected the NCAA's argument that allowing the athletes to play would cause significant harm.
"The Court finds that the NCAA's argument that they will suffer harm if the Plaintiffs are granted their requested relief to be without merit," Edwards wrote.
He cited previous NCAA exceptions that have allowed athletes to compete for more than four seasons, including the COVID eligibility waiver, junior-college exceptions and redshirt years. He also noted that the NCAA has adopted a new five-year model for subsequent classes.
"Ultimately," Edwards wrote, "the Court finds that the equities strongly favor Plaintiffs."
He found three forms of irreparable harm to the athletes: the loss of a season and developmental opportunities, lost NIL and revenue-sharing opportunities that could not be recovered later, and potential damage to professional careers and reputations.
"With practice having already begun," Edwards wrote, "each day of delay compounds the harm irreversibly."
Edwards also found that the athletes had demonstrated a likelihood of success on two separate claims under Kentucky law: breach of contract and the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act.
His strongest criticism of the NCAA came in discussing its treatment of the Class of 2022.
Edwards noted that the NCAA has permitted some athletes who competed professionally to return to college while simultaneously adopting a five-year eligibility model that benefits athletes in subsequent classes but excludes those who began their careers in 2022.
"This conduct is unfair and unconscionable," Edwards wrote, saying the NCAA was "applying a benefit to every class except for the Class of 2022."
He added that the NCAA "has failed to articulate a substantive basis for this exclusion" grounded in academics, safety or competitive fairness.
The immediate consequences of Friday's rulings extend well beyond the plaintiffs in Edwards' courtroom.
Hutchinson and Mack remain protected by the Kentucky TRO. Perry, who was not a plaintiff, is no longer eligible under Wisne. Louisville basketball addition Seth Trimble likewise had been relying on the Colorado injunction and no longer has that protection. Trimble's decision to transfer to Louisville came after the Colorado ruling opened another season to Class of 2022 athletes.
At Kentucky, linebacker Alex Afari also had been relying on the Colorado injunction. At Indiana, defensive lineman Stephen Daley and linebacker Kellan Wyatt were in the same position; both were declared ineligible Friday after the Tenth Circuit ruling. But Sam Alexis, an Indiana basketball player who returned under an injunction in state court, remains eligible.
Athletes elsewhere who have obtained separate temporary restraining orders or injunctions remain protected by those orders unless and until those orders are stayed, reversed or expire.
Those who haven't now have considerably more incentive — and considerably less time — to seek one.
The result is an eligibility system increasingly determined not simply by NCAA rules, but by whether an athlete filed suit, where the suit was filed and what a particular judge decided.
For Louisville, it leaves one of the strangest distinctions imaginable.
Hutchinson: protected by court order.
Mack: protected by court order.
Perry: no longer protected.
Three players from the Class of 2022. Three players who returned to Louisville believing a federal court had opened the door for another season.
By Friday afternoon, the door remained open for two of them.
For the third, at least for now, another court had closed it.
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