More than 30 active lawsuits involving nearly 400 athletes are running through American courts as the 2026 college football season opens, according to an Associated Press count — a legal backlog large enough that LSU fielded a player this week under a judge's standing order against the NCAA's own eligibility rule, while the Big 12 remains locked in litigation against one of its own member schools. [1]
The immediate trigger is the NCAA's new five-year eligibility rule, which excluded last year's high school graduating class — the Class of 2022 — from an extra year of competition that classes before and after it received. In response, the Big Ten and SEC passed conference rules barring players from returning to college after even briefly signing with a professional team; the Big 12 and ACC quickly followed with similar bans. [1] LSU, the SEC school actually planning to bring back athletes who had signed pro contracts, showed no sign of backing down. Louisiana's governor, who keeps an active hand in the state's biggest athletic program, put it bluntly: "Don't hate the player, hate the game." [1]
The Big 12's fight with its own member illustrates how far the eligibility chaos has spread beyond any single rule. The conference sued Texas Tech in June after quarterback Brendan Sorsby's admission of a gambling addiction — a disclosure that came after a state court order had temporarily let him play despite the NCAA's longstanding ban on athletes who gamble. [1] Sorsby ultimately withdrew from college and abandoned the fight, but the Big 12's lawsuit against its own school lingers, "triggered by a state court order that had temporarily allowed Sorsby to play despite the NCAA longtime ban." [1]
NCAA senior vice president Tim Buckley framed the pattern as judicial abuse in response to a ruling from a Louisiana judge who has repeatedly found against the NCAA and SEC. "Unfortunately, this is the latest example of member schools weaponizing locally elected judges to skirt member-agreed upon rules," Buckley said. "College sports are supposed to be a launching pad to careers, not a fallback for professional athletes who already competed throughout their time in college." [1] Duke football coach Manny Diaz offered a version of the same complaint from inside the sport: "We can enjoy the fact that the players can benefit financially from playing in college now. At the same time, recognize the ultimate truth that we're not a professional sports franchise. We are a collegiate, scholastic school activity, and we've got to rein that in." [1]
What both framings undersell is the specific reason this wave of lawsuits looks different from the eligibility disputes of a decade ago. Most of the plaintiffs are arguing it is unfair to exclude Class-of-2022 athletes the way the new rule does — but AP's own reporting notes "it's also clear that many athletes hoping to come back can count on money — revenue-sharing, NIL deals — that were not available six years ago." [1] Barbara Osborne, a University of North Carolina law professor and NCAA governance expert, described the underlying structural mismatch: "The difference between a professional sports league and collegiate athletics is literally night and day." [1] A trio of lawsuits dating to 2009 forced schools to open their pocketbooks to athlete compensation in the first place — the settlement Duke's Diaz gestures toward when he credits players for now being able to "benefit financially." That settlement is also the reason returning to college football, for a player who briefly left for the pros, is now a financially rational decision in a way it simply was not before revenue-sharing existed.
Congress has a bill pending that would grant the NCAA limited lawsuit protection over eligibility rulemaking specifically, but it remains stalled, leaving the courts as the only venue currently capable of resolving individual cases. Tyrone Thomas, an attorney at Fox Rothschild who advises universities on compliance, argued for perspective rather than alarm: "We're in a system that's only been around for less than a half-dozen years... I look at these as maybe not the house-on-fire issue of the day. There are definitely 'fire' issues." [1] Thomas noted the pool of potential plaintiffs is structurally bounded — only athletes who graduated high school in 2022 and lost eligibility last spring can sue under this specific rule — a limit that should, in theory, make the current wave self-resolving even without federal legislation.
For now, the lawsuits are simply part of the season. Absent the antitrust exemption most professional leagues enjoy and college sports does not, every new eligibility rule the NCAA writes remains, by design, a new invitation to litigate it — and for the first time, litigating it can be worth real money to the athlete filing suit.
-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos