Big news regarding player eligibility became official Wednesday, and the NCAA effectively puts an age cap on Division 1 college sports.
Division 1 athletes will now have five years to play their sports. Their eligibility clocks begin either the moment they enroll in school or the academic year after their 19th birthday.
No more waiver processes. No more delayed enrollment rules. No more redshirt seasons. No more 26-year-olds competing against teenage freshmen at the highest levels of college sports.
As somebody whose grand opinion about sports leagues across college and professional landscapes over the past few years has been “make sports younger, get rid of the old people,” I’m finding myself pretty excited for this sort of move.
It also eliminated a level of bureaucracy, which is always a win in my book.
The NCAA will stop accepting season-of-competition or waiver requests to extend anybody’s eligibility clock for circumstances that occurred during or before the 2025-26 school year after July 31.
What are the new eligibility rules?
Initial full-time college enrollment — The academic term when the student-athlete first enrolls full time and attends class at any college or university, including a domestic institution, international institution or junior college.
Age-based trigger — The start of the regular academic year immediately following the student-athlete’s 19th birthday, if the student-athlete turns 19 years old before Sept. 1.
For an individual who turns 19 years old on or after Sept. 1, the period of eligibility begins at the start of the subsequent academic year, unless the individual enrolls full time in college earlier.
Exceptions to new eligibility rules
There are a few exceptions to these rules.
One is for service commitments — military or religious reasons, mostly — and the other exception is for pregnancy.
Military Service, Religious Missions and Similar Service Commitments — Time spent in active-duty military service, on an official religious mission or in a similar service commitment may be excluded from the five-year period if the student-athlete does not participate in organized competition during that service.
Pregnancy Exception — A pregnant student-athlete may pause the eligibility period for the duration of the actual period during which the individual cannot compete. Supporting medical documentation is required.
How eligibility rules affect today’s athletes
Student-athletes who used their final season of competition (under previous rules) during 2025-26 — No additional eligibility.
Current student-athletes with eligibility remaining (under previous rules) after the 2025-26 academic year — Either the previous rules OR the new age-based model, whichever is most beneficial to the student-athlete.
Prospects who initially enroll full time at any college or university during 2026-27 — Either the previous rules OR the new age-based model, whichever is most beneficial to the student-athlete.
Prospects who initially enroll full-time at any college or university in fall 2027 or later — The age-based model only.
Personally, I immediately appreciate the changes.
As said above, I’m totally on board with making top-level college sports generally younger. I can get behind the idea of prioritizing college-aged people as the ones who get to play college sports. I’m all for filtering all of the older talent in college sports to Division 2 and 3 schools.
(And if the Division 2 and Division 3 schools are the only ones who can have the oldest players in the sport, that means those lower divisions should expect to see some improved quality of play, right?)
I’ll admit, I haven’t gone down the rabbit hole of how this affects everybody across the board (thinking about international recruits when I say this) or even every sport (hockey), but I feel like this sort of rule change is simple enough to make me wish this could’ve happened 10 or so years ago.
Because the waiver process, at best, feels very dumb and stupid.
But you know what else has ended up being dumb and stupid for college football? The four-game redshirt rule.
In football, being able to retain a single year eligibility for playing no more than four games in a year has not worked out the way it was probably intended. While it’s been probably helpful for players who got seriously injured in the first few games of a season to be able to rehabilitate and return with no harm to their respective eligibility clocks, it’s led to a lot of politics.
I like to think I have the athletes’ best interests in mind, but we’ve seen players across football have a good first four games of the year and, mysteriously, never play again. They hit the transfer portal after the year. They don’t miss any years of eligibility. That’s simply not a healthy place for teams to have to deal with during the season.
It’s not really good for the fans of the affected teams, either.
I don’t say this very often (nor should I), but I feel compelled to say it for once: Good on the NCAA for making easy-to-follow directions on something that affects thousands and thousands of people every year, and good on the NCAA for finally trying to spend a little less time in court.