The NCAA is considering making another seismic shift to the quickly evolving landscape of college sports.
With the pending settlement in the House case, and pushes to unionize college sports teams already at the forefront, the NCAA is now reportedly looking at giving student-athletes five years of eligibility in all sports.
CBS Sports‘ Jon Rothstein reported Friday that, according to an NCAA official, the organization is looking at allowing all players to have five years to compete collegiately, a topic that “will continue to be discussed in early 2025.”
Current rules dictate that student-athletes have a five-year clock to compete in four collegiate seasons. However, things have been muddied since the COVID-19 pandemic, as due to the interruptions it caused to the 2020-21 season, any athlete who competed in it had the option to use a fifth year of eligibility.
We’ve seen many swimmers and divers take advantage of the COVID fifth year over the last few seasons, but 2024-25 will mark the last time it can be utilized (as freshmen in 2020-21 would now be in their fifth year) unless someone has taken a redshirt along the way.
This isn’t the first time the idea has come up in NCAA talks, per reports, as Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported in early September that the NCAA was looking at applying the football redshirt rule to all sports moving forward. Football and wrestling both have rules that allow players to participate in a certain number of contests while still using their redshirt year, while all other sports don’t have the same leeway.
The latest report from Rothstein sounds as if it wouldn’t be applying the redshirt rule to other sports, it would be a blanket rule allowing five years of eligibility for student-athletes.
This news comes just a few weeks after a Tennessee Judge ruled in favor of college football quarterback Diego Pavia, allowing him to compete in the 2025 season despite having exhausted his eligibility under the current rules. Pavia argued that a junior college stint shouldn’t count towards a player’s NCAA eligibility—a junior college stint counts as one season of eligibility per the current rules—and was granted a temporary injunction. This means he’ll be able to play next season (despite being ineligible under the current rules) before the topic is revisited.
This would be a disaster for any 4-year college program that didn’t have grad programs to offer.
Is it retroactive? I graduated in 4 years a decade+ ago and I have more in the tank and I still have a fastskin II with some life in it
It’s a legskin but I’d cut them off just below the knee and look like the kid whose mom would’nt but him a new jammer so it just slowly stretched down his legs.
I finished 30+ years ago, and still have my old paper suit. I think I could squeeze into if one of my balls is outside. I still swim some, so think D3 a good option.
In 2083, when NCAA swimming is just three 80 year old men juggling bowling pins on unicycles for $70m NIL deals, we’ll remember that this is where it all started.
The more years for college eligibility the better. Swimming is already a tough sport to stay at peak capability. And there are limited pool times, limited fantastic coaching/training opportunities, and college has the money to support. Give the opportunity to tge swimmers in college while they still have it.
The problem is that with roster limits, having 5 years reduces the space for new freshmen to take spots as the 5th years will be taking those spots longer. Sure it’s good for a few swimmers but it will actually be bad for the sport in whole
This allows for athletes to take a year to study overseas, take valuable internships, etc. I see a lot of positives for collegiate athletes. In a post Os year, not a bad idea.
All of those things would require a redshirt, which wouldn’t count against their eligibility anyway.
New idea: you are disqualified as an NCAA athlete if you competed in the senior national championship and/or the olympic trials for another country.
And now the downvotes from current/prospective D1 athletes (and parents) who would be affected by using American universities – largely tax funded – to gain top tier training so they can represent other countries.
Universities already have international athletes who make the American athletes better (eg, Marchand).
And then who dominated at the Olympics? Did Marchand make NCAA athletes better or did NCAA program, coaches, and athletes make Marchand better? I wonder if people understand just how many spots are being claimed by international swimmers. A quick survey of some top D1 STATE TAXPAYER FUNDED men’s programs:
Indiana: 9 out of 48 spots (19%)
U of Georgia: 6 out of 30 are international (20%)
Cal Berkley: 9 out of 42 are international (21%)
Louisville: 8 out of 33 are international (24%)
Arizona State: 9 out of 36 are International (25%)
Stanford: 7 out of 27 are international (26%)
U of Alabama: 10 out of 29 are international (26%)
U of… Read more »
USA SWIMMING: it’s time to LEAD. We are counting on you to DO SOMETHING.
Only if you double-dipped like Kaii Winkler.
I’m not sure I understand. NCAA would disqualify them….why? Why should they discriminate between which country they swim for if, even if just in in name with all the scholarships, they are paying for an education at the school?
USA Swimming isn’t even the same thing as NCAA. They have (rather different) rule books, so why are you begging USA Swimming to do something when they have no say over NCAA?
Would this be in all divisions? D3 universities with graduate divisions would have an advantage here. The UAA teams (Emory, NYU, Chicago, Washington, Case, Carnegie, Rochester, Brandeis) and Hopkins could develop some swimmers for a full five years, or take advantage of a mid-major conference swimmer going to grad school for a fifth year. It already happened with stunning success at NYU (Maas; not saying he was from a mid-major).
NO! You can’t cut the roster in half AND grant 5 years of eligibility AND give unlimited spots to international kids.
I feel athletes in basketball/football/baseball that are outstanding might not use the 5 years because they want to go pro as quickly as possible however other sports that don’t make money going pro may use this.
Example Caitlin Clark making less money in the WNBA.
Athletes will weigh whether NIL money in college is more versus going pro.