Over the past few months, the NCAA has been battered by the House v. NCAA settlement, forced into rewriting its rules on athlete compensation and revenue sharing. But behind that headline moment, a series of lesser-known lawsuits and legal actions are brewing - and they may be just as transformative.
From individual waiver cases, to class-action challenges, to eligibility policies, the NCAA is being confronted by athletes who believe now is the moment to push for long-overdue change. And they may be right.
But on the other side of that change? Thousands of high school students waiting for their shot. And the longer the eligibility window stays open for current college athletes, the narrower it becomes for those behind them.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Pavia Lawsuit: A Challenge to One of the NCAA’s Oldest Eligibility Norms
At the heart of one of the most visible legal fights right now is Diego Pavia, a football player who filed suit against the NCAA after being denied a sixth year of eligibility.
Pavia’s situation has stirred attention because it underscores one of the NCAA’s most rigid rules: the “five-year clock.” Athletes have five calendar years to complete four seasons of eligibility. But Pavia, like many others, lost time to injury and the pandemic and was told he couldn’t get that time back.
So he sued.
And here’s the kicker: He won a temporary restraining order, forcing the NCAA to reinstate him while the case plays out. It’s a narrow victory, but one that signals a larger movement. If Pavia’s case gains traction, it could open the door for more athletes to push back on similar denials, and it could challenge the NCAA’s ability to enforce time-based eligibility at all.
The Blanket Injunction—And Why It Was Drawn So Carefully
In response to mounting legal and public pressure, the NCAA issued a one-year waiver earlier this summer that allows athletes in specific circumstances - like Diego Pavia’s - to gain an extra year of eligibility. This waiver primarily applies to players who lost their initial season due to redshirting and then had subsequent years disrupted by injury, transfer complications, or pandemic fallout.
It’s a notable shift in tone, acknowledging that the one-size-fits-all five-year eligibility clock doesn’t fit the current realities of college sports. The NCAA has long prided itself on being “student-first,” but this rule felt like a quiet admission that the institution had been failing some of the very students it claims to support.
Still, make no mistake: this wasn’t a broad change to eligibility rules. It was a narrowly drawn waiver, carefully crafted to apply to a specific group and timed to avoid setting a sweeping legal precedent.
That intentional narrowness hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially by athletes, lawyers, and administrators who feel like this was too little, too late, and designed more to head off lawsuits like Pavia’s than to address long-standing inequities in eligibility enforcement.
So while the NCAA tried to offer a Band-Aid, the broader system is still bleeding. And now, more athletes - feeling empowered by House v. NCAA and its aftermath - are stepping up to challenge decades-old rules, waivers or not.
DII, Redshirts, and JUCO: Who Gets Treated Fairly?
One of the biggest areas of current litigation involves how athletes in Division II and those who’ve used redshirt years are treated differently than junior college (JUCO) players, despite legal findings that increasingly suggest there shouldn’t be a difference.
For example, JUCO athletes are often given more flexibility in eligibility extensions or transfer rules than their peers at four-year institutions. But under Title IX, antitrust law, and the Equal Protection Clause, lawyers are now arguing that the NCAA is arbitrarily picking winners and losers.
This creates a sense of legal inequity - one that courts may eventually be asked to resolve. If successful, it could flatten the ruleset across divisions, force more consistent treatment of eligibility cases, and undermine one of the NCAA’s primary tools for managing roster movement.
The Real-World Consequence: What About the High School Kids?
While many are cheering this new era of athlete empowerment, there’s a less visible group already feeling the squeeze: high school athletes.
Unlike college players who can redshirt, take gap years, or earn extra eligibility through hardship waivers, high schoolers operate on a much stricter cycle. Most graduate in four years, and most need to be recruited into a college program during a very short window of time.
When colleges extend eligibility for current athletes—either through legal settlements or court orders—they’re essentially keeping roster spots locked up longer.
Fewer seniors leave. Fewer scholarships open, and fewer high school athletes get a chance to step into those opportunities.
It’s a bottleneck, and it’s real.
We’ve already seen schools retain “super seniors” year after year due to COVID eligibility. Now, if lawsuits keep extending timelines even further, we risk blocking an entire generation of incoming freshmen from getting the chance they’ve worked for.
Why Now? Because the NCAA Is Wobbling
It’s no coincidence that these lawsuits are piling up at this moment.
The NCAA is losing public support, battered by legal losses, and increasingly vulnerable as its old model unravels. With the courts already forcing it to concede on pay-for-play and transfer rights, lawyers and athletes sense an inflection point - a moment when norms held for decades can finally be challenged.
And they’re right: this is the best chance many of these athletes will ever have to push the system.
But inflection points go both ways.
If we extend eligibility too far, loosen all the transfer rules, and continue to back athletes into litigation to secure basic rights, we risk breaking the very pipeline that makes college sports work, the steady churn of high school athletes feeding into college programs.
Without that, the long-term sustainability of broad-based athletic programs is threatened not just for football and basketball, but for Olympic sports, walk-ons, and underserved communities.
What Comes Next?
If lawsuits like Pavia’s succeed and the NCAA is forced to concede more and more ground, we may see a full-scale rethinking of eligibility timelines, transfer policies, and perhaps even roster limits.
But with every extra year granted to a current athlete, another door quietly closes for the next one waiting in line.
College sports is balancing on a legal knife’s edge right now. There’s reason for hope, reason for challenge—and reason to remember that, at its heart, this system is meant to create opportunity.
Let’s make sure we don’t trade tomorrow’s dreams for today’s wins.
