N.C. State football coach Dave Doeren once had his starting quarterback quit during a season.
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The reason: MJ Morris, the quarterback, wanted to preserve a year of eligibility.
Morris, then a sophomore, began the 2023 season as a redshirt, replaced struggling starter Brennan Armstrong, played four games and won three, then announced he again was redshirting and done for the season. Armstrong did return to play well, finishing out the Pack’s 9-4 season.
The new NCAA age-based eligibility rule, approved in June by the NCAA Division I cabinet, will end redshirting quandaries and a flood of waiver requests tied to eligibility. Generally called the “five for five” rule, it allows college athletes five years of eligibility in a five-year time frame and replaces the old model of four seasons of competition in five years.
A college athlete’s five-year “clock” begins if they enroll in college no later than the academic year after their 19th birthday. The only waivers will be for military service, maternity leave or religious missions.
“Common sense to me is something that we can all use a little bit more of,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said last week at the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte. “Having five years to play seems really fair for a student-athlete. That has to be the foundational piece of how we move forward from an eligibility standpoint.”
Previously, football players were allowed to play four games in a season and then redshirt without exhausting a year of eligibility. Younger players used the four games in development. Coaches could use it in evaluation.
“It was a great rule at the time,” Doeren said at the ACC Kickoff. “But when the transfer portal and NIL came along, agents started using those four games as leverage, telling kids to transfer and shut it down or use it to negotiate for more money.
“That wasn’t the intent of the rule and I think the ‘five-for-five’ rule will eliminate a lot of those issues.”
The rule change came after an executive order by President Trump in April directing the NCAA, among other things, to institute a five-year model for athletes. The rule was approved by the Division I board of directors in April, then sent to the Division I cabinet in June.
The NCAA’s stated goal to produce “predictable boundaries for eligibility.” College coaches and administrators want that, believing it can bring more normalcy to roster management during a time in college sports that has been turbulent, with the advent of revenue-sharing with athletes and lucrative NIL payments leading to financial decisions by many athletes.
“Once we put the revenue-sharing piece in place, then we started to run into enormous challenges and issues around eligibility, and most of those involved people going to court just to get another year, and another year and another year,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said during an appearance at the Associated Press Sports Editors convention on Friday. “You know, I think we should have been smart enough to figure out — and I don’t know why we didn’t — that if you started to share revenue with players, and their schools want to make sure they stay, (that) this thing (could) triple.”
The Protect College Sports Act of 2026 is proposed federal legislation that has bipartisan support in both the Senate and House, and from Trump. If passed, it would call for standardized rules for the NCAA portal, NIL protections and disclosures, and recruitment and tampering rules as well as allow the NCAA limited antitrust protection.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), one of four co-sponsors, said, “Eligibility is really a question mark now. You can go to the G League and come back (to college). You can, you know, get your seventh year (of eligibility) because the judge went to Ole Miss like you do.
“So that is not really a sustainable model. It really isn’t.”
The five-for-five eligibility model should be a positive, sensible step, Duke coach Manny Diaz said at the ACC Kickoff.
“From a roster management standpoint you don’t have to worry about, well, we’re only going to play this guy four games or are we wasting him being on kickoff coverage?” Diaz said. “You don’t have to worry about a guy opting out to protect a year of eligibility. Everyone understands you’ve got five years, so get on the field and be as impactful as you can.
“I think the rule will be good for the players. It will be good for the coaches because you don’t have to worry about the 2029 roster based on 2026 decisions.”
There was a word of caution from Diaz: “Any time a new rule comes out, you kind of pause until the lawyers get done with it.”
The NCAA ruled that athletes who entered school before this year and have eligibility remaining can either gain the fifth year of competition — a “super senior” year — or remain in the four-in-five model, whichever is more beneficial.
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But no “grandfather” clause was approved by the NCAA cabinet to retroactively give those in the 2022 class who graduated in 2025-26 an extra year.
The NCAA’s Baker told ESPN, “If you’ve used up your eligibility, you’ve used it up.”
The major conferences fell in line behind Baker. The lawsuits soon began.
An eligibility lawsuit was filed last week against the NCAA in California that sought an injunction to allow those in the 2022 recruiting class to receive a fifth year. More than 45 men’s and women’s college basketball players were involved, asking that those who used their fourth year of eligibility in the 2025-26 school year be granted an extra year.
There are other suits and cases pending, including those in Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin and Colorado. Former UNC basketball player Cade Tyson was among 11 athletes who recently filed a federal class-action lawsuit in Colorado that claims the NCAA rule change prevents them from an extra year of competition and NIL benefits.
Tyson, a forward who transferred from UNC to Minnesota, averaged 19.6 points as a senior last season.
Duke linebacker Luke Mergott said the age-based rule change should level the playing field more fairly in terms of bigger/faster/stronger physical maturity.
“The best thing about a five-for-five 5 rule is you won’t have 25-year-olds playing anymore,” Mergott said. “Having a 17- or 18-year-old playing against a 25-year-old, it’s almost like playing against a pro. Six or seven years of development is an insane gap. That’s why true freshmen playing is so rare.”
Mergott, entering his fourth year of competition, is listed at 6-3 and 225 pounds. He was given the team’s “Duke Tough Award” for 2025 for his physical and mental toughness.
“I remember when I was 17,” he said. “I was 200 pounds. I was a child who happened to be good at football. But 25-year-olds against 17-year-olds?”
Still to be determined is the effects the new rule will have in recruiting. International players must abide by the 19-th birthday provision to have the full five years of competition.
UNC wide receiver Jordan Shipp, like Mergott, now has an extra year of eligibility to use, if wanted. While aware of the rule change, the junior from Charlotte said he has given it little thought as he prepares for the 2026 season.
“Of course it comes up (but) I’m not really focused on playing college football for five years,” Shipp said at the ACC Kickoff. “I’m focused on being able to get to the ACC championship this year and helping my team by doing whatever I need to do. That’s all I’m worried about, no matter how long I’m here.”
NCAA leaders are hoping the five-year model will entice athletes to stay in school longer, improving their chances of graduating. That would be a trend everyone could agree on.
“While previous NCAA rules have served college sports well for a long time, we heard also loud and clear from NCAA members and student-athletes that eligibility rules should be easier to understand,” Baker said in a release by the NCAA. “This change to an age-based model eliminates aspects of the rules that have proven difficult to administer in the current litigious environment and clearly defines the exceptions available in limited circumstances, while preserving the long-intended alignment of eligibility with typical college enrollment and graduation patterns, because 98% of the 550,000 NCAA student-athletes will go pro in something other than sports.”
The rule change had the support of the Division I Student-Athlete Advocacy Committee, which issued a statement saying it “clearly establishes an individual’s period of eligibility, provides student-athletes with greater certainty as they plan for college and make important decisions regarding enrollment, competition and degree completion.”
Coaches believe it will be a change for the better while also knowing there will be more changes to come.
“We could walk out of here today and have three different rules or a change in something.,” Georgia Tech coach Brent Key said at the ACC Kickoff. “You have to be adaptable.”
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