Ohio Governor Gives 2022 Athletes a Fifth Year, and the NCAA President Pushes Back

A governor signed a piece of paper on Tuesday that says Ohio’s colleges may ignore the NCAA on one narrow question, and the NCAA’s president answered within hours that the paper changes nothing. Gov. Mike DeWine’s executive order gives class of 2022 athletes in Ohio a fifth year in 2026-27, the class the NCAA’s new eligibility model left out. Charlie Baker’s reply, in a letter to member schools, said a governor cannot legislate NCAA eligibility rules. Both men are now on the record, and the schools in the middle have to decide whose instruction to follow.

What does the Ohio order actually change for a 2022 athlete?

On paper, everything, and the Columbus Dispatch printed the operative sentence. No Ohio college, public or private, may uphold any rule that prevents a class of 2022 athlete from fully playing in 2026-27, regardless of four completed seasons or eligibility used up under current or older NCAA regulations, and regardless of the NCAA’s interpretation of its own bylaws. Three conditions apply: the athlete must have been within five years of their 19th birthday and of enrolling in college at the start of 2026-27, must have been eligible at the end of their last season, and must not have played in a professional league. DeWine framed it as fairness, saying Ohio athletes should have the same opportunity as athletes in other states, the Associated Press reports. Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, who won national titles coaching at Ohio State and Youngstown State, backed the order on the same grounds.

Why did the NCAA leave the class of 2022 out?

Because the new model was not made retroactive. The NCAA’s age-based policy, in effect since the summer, allows athletes five years to play up to five seasons, counted from their 19th birthday or from starting college, Front Office Sports reports. The governing body then decided that model does not reach back to the freshman class of 2022, whose members had already played four seasons under the older landscape. Hundreds of those athletes have sued, the Associated Press reports, arguing the cutoff is unfair and costs them money in an era when schools now share revenue with players and athletes earn from their name, image and likeness. Ohio’s order is the first by a governor on this question, Front Office Sports reports, although other governors have weighed in before.

What did Charlie Baker say, and how fast did he say it?

The same day. Baker’s memo to member schools, published by ESPN and quoted by the Dispatch, said the governor of Ohio cannot legislate NCAA eligibility rules and called one elected official making rules for his own schools’ advantage a terrible way to run athletic competitions. He said eligibility rules made through the NCAA’s governance process have been and will continue to be applied consistently across the membership, including in Ohio. He also used the moment to push Congress to pass the Protect College Sports Act, the bill that would put guardrails around player pay and limit the lawsuits players can bring. No Ohio Division I program, not No. 4 Ohio State, not Cincinnati, not any of the six Mid-American Conference schools, responded immediately, the Associated Press reports.

Does the order have teeth if the NCAA simply ignores it?

That is the live argument, and the lawyers quoted by Front Office Sports split it into two parts. The order does not require any school to roster a 2022 athlete; it gives schools cover if they choose to, sports attorney Darren Heitner told the outlet. Boise State sports law professor Sam Ehrlich said the order only has legal teeth if the schools think it has legal teeth, and that the NCAA has several legal theories available if it wants to attack it. Nebraska attorney general Mike Hilgers questioned whether such an order can be enforced across a league at all. Seton Hall professor Bob Boland called it a fairly strong statement of policy that could sway Ohio’s supreme court in Borovicanin v NCAA, the first case filed on this issue, whose plaintiffs won eligibility at first and then lost their injunction on appeal. The Dispatch, meanwhile, reports the practical answer at the state’s flagship: Ohio State’s men’s and women’s basketball programs are not expected to be affected, and the football roster is already set. The fight is real, and the biggest program in the state may sit it out.

How does this sit alongside the other college rows this month?

College programs have spent October arguing about authority inside their own buildings: Michigan receiver Zack Marshall apologised after leaked texts criticising his own coordinator became public, and the Big Ten’s officiating became the story after Bear Alexander’s unflagged swing at Nico Iamaleava. This row is one level up, between a state and the national governing body, over who writes eligibility law at all. The weather version of the same disruption played out when a hurricane moved College GameDay indoors while Georgia and Alabama played on, and the human version when Jalon Daniels called his mother onto the postgame desk after his first NFL win, a reminder of how short the window is that the 2022 class is fighting over: one more season is a career for the players inside it.

What happens next, in court and in Congress?

Three clocks are running. In Denver, the 10th Circuit panel hearing Wisne vs NCAA asked hard questions of the players’ lawyer about how the market for these athletes is defined, asked the NCAA’s lawyer the mirror-image questions, and asked both sides whether it should simply wait for Congress, the Associated Press reports. Both sides said no, because the football season is halfway over and basketball is about to start. In Washington, the House is due to consider the Protect College Sports Act, which passed the Senate last month and would codify the NCAA’s policy in federal law without cancelling cases already filed. And in Ohio, the test case has not happened yet: it arrives the first time an Ohio school names a 2022 athlete it intends to play under the governor’s order, and the NCAA has to choose between enforcing its rule against that school or letting the order stand. The Associated Press noted the precedent everyone in the room is thinking about: California’s NIL law was copied by other states until the NCAA had to give in nationally. One order may not move the NCAA. A queue of governors might.