Who knew you needed a law degree to cover college sports?
I can’t keep up anymore.
There seems to be a new injunction from a state court every other day changing who can play college sports, how long they can play and, apparently now, whether becoming an NFL player actually means your college career is over. Read more: Forget the transfer portal. Now we have the NFL portal.
This latest mess started with the NCAA changing its eligibility structure in June. Players who began college in the fall of 2022 started challenging the NCAA’s interpretation of who qualifies for a newly available fifth season.
Then, as they seemingly always do these days, the courts got involved.
A Louisiana state court granted a temporary restraining order to 33 athletes, including former Ole Miss tight end Dae’Quan Wright, potentially giving them a path toward another college season.
Here’s where things get interesting.
The Wright stuff
Wright had already gone through the NFL process. He went undrafted, signed with the Philadelphia Eagles, was claimed by the Cleveland Browns, participated in NFL training camp and even warmed up before a preseason game.
Then Lane Kiffin and LSU came calling.
After Cleveland waived Wright, he agreed this week to join LSU and potentially return to college football.
Apparently, we are a long way from Tattoo-Gate and eating too much pasta being NCAA violations.
If you’re having trouble making sense of all of this, you’re not alone.
Rams coach Sean McVay was asked about NFL players returning to college and offered perhaps the most accurate assessment yet.
“I feel like I took a freakin’ gummy.”
I’m starting to think McVay and I are on the same wavelength.
Somehow, college football reached a point in 2026 where going from an NFL training camp back to a college campus became a legitimate career path. Even in the anything-goes world of modern college athletics, that was apparently a bridge too far. The Power Four conferences have all stepped in with rules designed to keep professional athletes from becoming college athletes again.
Doing the right thing
The Big 12, SEC, Big Ten and ACC have all moved to prevent players who have crossed certain professional thresholds from returning to compete in their conferences.
The exact rules vary by conference, but the message is pretty clear. At some point, your college career ends and your professional life begins.
Of course, because nothing in college sports can remain simple for more than about 15 minutes, the courts are already getting involved again.
Related: Tough roster conversations incoming thanks to latest NCAA ruling
On Friday, a Texas judge temporarily blocked the SEC and NCAA from enforcing eligibility restrictions against a group of more than 40 athletes challenging the rules. That potentially reopens the door for Wright to play at LSU — at least for now.
So stay tuned.
By the time you finish reading this column, another judge may have ruled.
The four conferences have different nuances in how they are handling all of this, and the lawsuits are far from over. But let’s concentrate on the conference that matters most around here:
The Big XII ruling
The Big 12 was remarkably straightforward.
Its members unanimously adopted a conference rule prohibiting any member institution from rostering an athlete who has, at any time:
- Declared for the draft or supplemental draft of a professional sports league and failed to withdraw before the deadline.
- Been listed on the roster of a professional sports league.
- Signed a contract with any professional sports league to provide athletic services.
And then came perhaps the most important sentence in the entire announcement:
The rule applies independently of the status of NCAA eligibility determinations.
That’s significant.
A player could conceivably convince the NCAA – or a court – that he still has another season of eligibility remaining and the Big 12 could still say he isn’t playing at West Virginia, Texas Tech, Kansas State or anywhere else in the conference.
At least until another judge gets involved. And at the rate we’re going, give it a few days.
But here’s the thing:
The Big 12 is right – and so are the other major conferences trying to draw this line.
The amateurism argument is over. College athletes can make money, transfer and benefit from their value.
But there still has to be a point when a college athlete becomes a professional athlete.
If signing a professional contract isn’t that point, I’m not sure what is.
