College Football Eligibility Rules: Redshirts, the Five-Year Clock and Extra Years

Oct 23, 2026 • 2 hours ago

For decades, NCAA Division I football players have had four seasons of competition to use within a five-year window, with redshirts, medical hardship waivers and the COVID-19 year as the main ways to stretch that clock. In June 2026 the NCAA adopted an age-based model that gives athletes five years to play five seasons, and the 2026 season is a transition year shaped by those rules and by a wave of eligibility lawsuits.

Updated for the 2026 season.

How many years of eligibility does a college football player have?

Under the long-standing Division I rule, a player could take part in four seasons of competition, and all four had to fall within a five-year period. In practice, that meant most players who stayed five years sat out, or redshirted, one of them. Seasons spent at other schools, including junior colleges and Division II programs, generally counted against that total.

That framework is being replaced. On June 23, 2026, the Division I Cabinet voted unanimously to adopt an age-based eligibility model. An athlete gets up to five years of eligibility, provided he enrolls in college no later than the academic year after his 19th birthday. Under the version the Division I Board of Directors sent to the Cabinet in April, the five-year window opens with the academic year after an athlete graduates high school or turns 19, whichever comes first. The new model does away with season-of-competition limits, sport-specific eligibility rules, redshirt rules and most eligibility-extension waivers.

Who the new rule covers, and when

Group	Rules that apply
Prospects first enrolling full time in fall 2027 or later	Age-based model only
Prospects first enrolling full time in fall 2026	Whichever is more favorable: the old four-in-five rules or the age-based model
Current athletes with eligibility left after 2025-26	Whichever is more favorable: the old four-in-five rules or the age-based model
Athletes who used their final season under the old rules in 2025-26	No additional eligibility

The new rules are not retroactive. NCAA president Charlie Baker said before the vote that he would not recommend restoring eligibility to athletes who had already exhausted it. Only three circumstances can pause or delay the clock under the new model: pregnancy, active-duty military service and an official religious mission, and only if the athlete does not take part in organized competition during that time. The NCAA Eligibility Center administers those exceptions.

National Football Post covered the board's April action in NCAA advances age-based eligibility pitch, not retroactive for 2025-26.

The redshirt rule

A redshirt season is a year in which a player is on the roster and practices but does not use one of his four seasons of competition. Before 2018, appearing in a single game generally used up a season unless the player later received a medical hardship waiver.

In June 2018 the Division I Council approved a football-specific change, effective that season: a player could appear in up to four games and still keep the year. The change did not lengthen the five-year window and did not restore seasons that players had already used. The four-game allowance applied to the regular season plus any postseason games beyond it, as NFP reported in January 2026.

At the American Football Coaches Association convention in January 2026, FBS head coaches voted unanimously to recommend raising the allowance to nine games. That vote was a recommendation, not an NCAA rule, and needed approval from the Division I governance structure. Instead, the Division I Cabinet in June 2026 adopted the age-based model, which eliminates redshirt rules altogether for athletes who fall under it; an NCAA background document on the model says football's redshirt exception is no longer relevant because athletes may play a full schedule in each of their five years. Athletes in the transition group who choose the old rules remain under the four-game standard.

Medical hardship waivers

A medical hardship waiver, often called a medical redshirt, restored a season of competition when a player suffered a season-ending injury or illness early in the year. Under Division I Bylaw 12.8.4 as amended effective Aug. 1, 2022, all of these conditions had to be met:

The injury or illness occurred during one of the athlete's four seasons of competition, or after the first day of classes of his senior year of high school.
It occurred before the first game of the second half of the season and ended his season.
In a team sport such as football, he had played in no more than three contests or 30 percent of the season's maximum, whichever was greater.

Requests for a sixth year or other extensions went to the NCAA as waivers, and denials could be appealed within the NCAA. When a player's waiver was denied, the remaining option was litigation. Under the age-based model, these extension waivers no longer exist. The NCAA required any waiver request under the old rules, based on circumstances during or before 2025-26, to reach its national office by July 31, 2026.

The COVID-19 extra year

In August 2020 the Division I Board of Directors approved a blanket waiver for fall-sport athletes, including football players. The 2020 season did not count against an athlete's four seasons, and the five-year window was extended by a year. Seniors who used the extra year did not count against team scholarship limits in 2021-22. That relief is why some players competed for six seasons in college. As of Oct. 23, 2026, the NCAA's transition rules give no additional time to athletes who exhausted their eligibility under the old rules in 2025-26.

Junior college years and the Pavia case

Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia sued the NCAA in 2024, arguing that counting his two seasons at New Mexico Military Institute, a junior college, against his Division I eligibility violated federal antitrust law. A federal judge in Tennessee granted him a preliminary injunction in December 2024, allowing him to play in 2025. Days later, the Division I Board granted a waiver allowing athletes who had spent one or more years at a non-NCAA school, and whose eligibility would otherwise have ended in 2024-25, to compete in 2025-26 if they met other requirements. The NCAA appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (No. 24-6153), which heard argument on Sept. 16, 2025, and closed the appeal on Oct. 1, 2025, according to the court docket. The law firm BakerHostetler reported that the appeal was dismissed as moot because the NCAA's own waiver had already given Pavia the 2025 season.

Under the age-based model, the clock runs from high school graduation or age 19 rather than from seasons played, so where an athlete spent those years matters less. An NCAA background document on the model says that if an athlete enrolls full time at any college before those triggers, domestic or international, the five years start at that enrollment, and it lists two-year college enrollees among the current athletes who may choose the more favorable set of rules.

Eligibility lawsuits in 2026

Players denied extra years by the NCAA turned to state courts in large numbers in 2026, with mixed results. Several cases covered by National Football Post:

Player	Issue	Result (as reported)
Trinidad Chambliss, QB, Ole Miss	Sixth year; NCAA denied a medical waiver for his 2022 season at Division II Ferris State	Preliminary injunction granted Feb. 12, 2026, in Mississippi chancery court; Mississippi Supreme Court denied the NCAA's petition to appeal in March 2026; case continues
Owen Heinecke, LB, Oklahoma	Three lacrosse games at Ohio State in 2022 counted as a season; waiver and appeal denied	Preliminary injunction granted April 16, 2026, in Cleveland County, Okla.; NCAA appealed
Jackson Carsello, C, Northwestern	Dispute over which season counted as his redshirt year	Preliminary injunction granted June 2026 in Cook County, Ill.; case continues
Brendan Sorsby, QB, Texas Tech	Ruled ineligible by the NCAA over sports betting, not years of eligibility	Temporary injunction granted June 8, 2026, in Lubbock County, Texas, with a two-game suspension

See NFP's reports on Chambliss's lawsuit and Heinecke's lawsuit. Appeals in several of these cases were pending at last report.

The August 2026 ruling on fifth-year eligibility

The largest case, Wisne v. NCAA, was filed in federal court in Colorado by Northern Colorado basketball player Brock Wisne. On July 31, 2026, the district court certified a nationwide class and ordered the NCAA to allow a fifth season for Division I athletes from the high school class of 2022. On Aug. 21, 2026, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit voted 2-1 to stay that injunction while the NCAA's expedited appeal proceeds, according to USA Today and Field Level Media. The NCAA then said class members who had been competing under the injunction were no longer eligible and that the age-based rules would take effect immediately. It said schools would not face violations for games played before the stay.

The stay does not reach athletes with their own court orders, including state-court rulings in California, Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee. An Ohio state-court injunction was stayed by the Ohio Court of Appeals. The NCAA filed its opening brief in the appeal (No. 26-1309) on Sept. 1, 2026, and the athletes filed theirs in September 2026. As of Oct. 23, 2026, the court docket on CourtListener showed no decision on the merits. NFP's report: Court ruling halts fifth-year NCAA eligibility for some athletes.

NFL draft eligibility

Under Article 6 of the NFL's collective bargaining agreement, a player cannot enter the draft until three NFL regular seasons have been completed since he graduated high school, or since his entering high school class graduated, whichever is earlier.

Can a player return to college after declaring for the NFL draft?

Only within a short window. According to the NCAA's memo to football players for the 2026 draft, a player at least three years out of high school may enter the draft once during his college career and keep his eligibility only if he is not drafted and tells his athletics director in writing, within 72 hours after the NFL's early-entry deadline, that he intends to return. The petition players file with the NFL gives up all remaining college eligibility unless it is revoked within that 72-hour window. For the 2026 draft, the withdrawal deadline was midnight on Jan. 26, 2026. Players who skip the window cannot test the draft and then return, and the NCAA notes that the NFL Scouting Combine falls after the withdrawal deadline.

A separate question arose in August 2026, when court orders allowed some players who had left for the NFL to rejoin college teams. According to ESPN, the NFL told its clubs that players who return to college are barred from signing with an NFL team for the rest of the season, and the SEC and Big Ten adopted rules to keep players from leaving NFL teams to join their programs. Players moving between programs also face transfer portal and NIL rules, which are covered separately.