LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A group of 13 college athletes, including players with ties to Louisville and Kentucky, asked a Louisville judge Friday to clear the way for them to play another season.
Their request could return players to the Louisville football roster, open the door for Missouri basketball transfer Mark Mitchell to join Kentucky and allow former Louisville guard Skyy Clark to find another school for what would be a fifth college season.
Jefferson Circuit Judge Brian Edwards did not rule Friday. After more than an hour of arguments over NCAA eligibility and transfer rules, he gave both sides until Tuesday to submit additional arguments and said he expects to issue a ruling by the end of next week.
At the heart of the case is a group that plaintiffs attorney Ryan Downton says has been "squeezed on both ends."
The players graduated from high school in 2022. When they arrived in college, they competed against fifth- and sixth-year players granted additional eligibility because of COVID-19. Now, as they leave, the NCAA has adopted a new "five-for-five" model allowing athletes behind them to play five seasons in five years.
The Class of 2022 is largely stuck with four.
"When they were coming out of high school they had COVID and had recruiting trips canceled and official visits canceled, then they go to school and had to play against fifth- and sixth-year players who got to play an extra year because of COVID," Downton said after the hearing.
"And now on the way out, everyone who's coming after them is also getting a fifth year. So as a matter of equity, they also deserve the opportunity to have five years to play, just like everyone who came before, and everyone who came after."
The NCAA's answer Friday was straightforward: The players got what the rules promised them.
Representing the NCAA, attorney Charles Stopher argued that when these athletes entered college, NCAA rules allowed them four seasons of competition within a five-year period. They received those four seasons. Changing the rule for future athletes, the NCAA argues, doesn't create a contractual right to a fifth.
The players argue that because NCAA rules are part of the agreement between the organization and its member schools, the NCAA also has an obligation to apply those rules fairly to the athletes who compete under them.
Stopher said that doesn't mean the court can give players something the rules in effect during their careers did not promise them.
He also made a broader point: Every rule change creates a dividing line.
"Any time there's a rule change, any time there is a fence built, any time that a line is drawn, there's some people on one side of the line," Stopher said.
Some people inevitably will wish they had fallen under the new rules instead of the old ones, he argued. That alone doesn't create a legal claim.
And, Stopher argued, giving these athletes another season isn't necessarily harmless to everyone else.
"It's a zero-sum game," Stopher said.
College rosters are finite. A fifth-year player who gets a roster spot may mean a younger player, recruit or walk-on doesn't.
Why the Louisville case matters
The athletes already have received some help in court.
Judges in Tennessee, Colorado, New Jersey, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Ohio have ruled favorably for athletes challenging the NCAA's treatment of the 2022 class, according to the amended complaint. A federal judge in Colorado issued a nationwide preliminary injunction protecting similarly situated athletes from the NCAA's four-season limit.
But that ruling addressed eligibility, not the transfer restrictions that could determine whether many of these athletes actually have somewhere to play.
That's why the plaintiffs want more from Edwards than a declaration that they have another season. They want the freedom to find somewhere to use it.
"All of them have one or more places," Downton said. "That's part of why we need the relief right now. They're not permitted to have official conversations to make final determinations. We want them to have that chance."
The timing matters. Football practice has begun. Fall semesters are approaching. Basketball rosters are largely assembled.
Who could go where?
For Louisville and Kentucky fans, that's where the lawsuit gets particularly interesting.
D'Angelo Hutchinson spent all four seasons of his college career at Louisville. The complaint says NCAA restrictions prevent him from speaking with coaches at other schools and doesn't identify where he would play if granted another season.
Jabari Mack played three seasons at Jacksonville State before spending last season at Louisville. His complaint identifies Louisville, Oregon State and Syracuse as possible destinations if he receives another season.
Skyy Clark began at Illinois, played the 2023-24 season at Louisville and spent the past two seasons at UCLA. The amended complaint says LSU has shown interest and has a roster spot available for him.
Mark Mitchell played two seasons at Duke and the past two at Missouri. He is looking to transfer to Kentucky if he obtains another season. The complaint doesn't identify Kentucky, saying NCAA restrictions prevent him from speaking with other coaches.
Thomas Castellanos, the former UCF, Boston College and Florida State quarterback, provides perhaps the clearest example of why transfer relief matters. He's enrolled at Florida State, but the complaint says FSU has no roster spot for him. Another year of eligibility doesn't do much good if he can't find somewhere to play it.
And Billy Smith, who played for Bellarmine in the 2024 and '25 seasons after transferring from Miami, then left for Chattanooga, says he'd like to pursue another season but isn't permitted to talk to coaches without action from the court.
Another eligibility wrinkle
The plaintiffs also point to NCAA decisions allowing some basketball players who competed professionally before college to retain substantial college eligibility.
Their complaint cites Louisville's London Johnson, who played three seasons in the G League before joining the Cardinals. The NCAA did not count Johnson's first G League season against his college seasons-of-competition limit.
The plaintiffs argue that creates a difficult contradiction: A 2022 high school graduate who went directly to college can be finished after four seasons, while a player from the same class who spent his first year playing professionally can still have college eligibility.
To them, that's further evidence that the NCAA's line is arbitrary.
Where does the five-year clock stop?
One of Edwards' more revealing lines of questioning Friday dealt with proposed federal legislation that would establish five years of eligibility.
If such a law passed without expressly being retroactive, Edwards asked, would these players get another year?
Downton said yes.
What about someone who played four college seasons 10 years ago?
No, Downton said. That player's five-year eligibility window already would have expired.
These players' windows haven't.
They entered college in 2022 and remain within the five-year period that began when they enrolled.
That's an important distinction in their case. They're not asking Edwards to reopen college careers that ended years ago. They're asking to use the fifth year of an eligibility clock that is still running.
Edwards gave little indication of how he intends to rule.
Downton said the athletes' attorneys raised the issue with the NCAA in litigation filed a year ago and asked it to change the rule.
"If they'd changed it then," he said, "we wouldn't be in the situation we're in today."
For now, 13 players are waiting.
So are Louisville, Kentucky, LSU and other schools that could suddenly have experienced players available before the season begins.
And somewhere between four years and five, Edwards has to decide whether the NCAA merely drew a line, or crossed one.
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