With Oklahoma State football season now five weeks away and fall practice getting in full swing next week, the Cowboys received some favorable, long-awaited news.
Senior defensive tackle Iman Oates was granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday in his eligibility lawsuit against the NCAA, allowing him to temporarily return to practice and team activities, effective immediately. On3 first reported the news.
Oates, 6-foot-3 and 315 pounds, played in all 24 games the past two seasons, including 19 starts. He made 39 tackles during that time, along with five tackles for loss, two sacks and a forced fumble. Before arriving at OSU and redshirting in 2023, Oates spent two years in junior college at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M.
The debate around Oates' eligibility centers on the NCAA's new five-for-five, age-based eligibility model, which states that a player's eligibility begins with college enrollment or 19th birthday, whichever comes first. Oates, 23, is still within the age window, and his lawsuit argues that his junior college enrollment should not have started his NCAA eligibility clock.
Oates filed a request for a TRO, preliminary injunction and permanent injunction July 10. The granted TRO allows Oates, who participated in spring practice, to return to team activities for now. His eligibility is temporary, though, as the TRO is in effect only until there's a Payne County court ruling on his injunction. There is no date set for that hearing yet.
According to the TRO documents, "The NCAA has breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing by: (a) starting Plaintiff's eligibility clock before he enrolled at an NCAA institution; (b) treating one year of junior college competition as equivalent to one year of NCAA Division I competition while simultaneously refusing to extend this treatment to prep school years or the first year of professional competition; and (c) granting blanket eligibility waivers to former junior college players whose eligibility expired after the 2024-25 season while excluding identically situated players like Plaintiff who competed in those same seasons."
The case references the lawsuit of former Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who started his career at the JUCO level before transferring to New Mexico State, then Vanderbilt. Pavia played for the Commodores in 2025 – his sixth season of college football, and fourth in Division I – under a preliminary injunction.
Also according to the TRO documents, Oates "has contractual arrangements to receive at least $129,000 in NIL compensation and revenue sharing for the 2026-27 season, conditioned on his eligibility to play."
The Cowboys begin fall practice Wednesday in preparation for their season opener Sept. 5 at Tulsa.
