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What's up with 5 for 5? It's dead for now, and that's OK | Williams
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- What's up with 5 for 5? It's dead for now, and that's OK | Williams
For college athletes, a framework for playing five full seasons over a five-year period isn't expected to come to fruition before the fall of 2027 at the earliest. Maybe not then.
We believed we already knew that, because the NCAA said so in October and hasn't vacillated . Lately, though, pushing the envelope on perfectly reasonable NCAA rules is in vogue.
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On Thursday, Jan. 15, a Tennessee judge dealt "5 for 5" another blow , denying a plea for a temporary injunction from five college football players to prevent the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility rules. The players who are party to Patterson v. NCAA — three from Wisconsin and one each from Vanderbilt and Nebraska — exhausted their eligibility in 2025, having played four seasons without redshirting. They were seeking a fifth, arguing the NCAA's redshirt rule violated antitrust law.
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Patterson v. NCAA is named for Vanderbilt linebacker Langston Patterson , one of the plaintiffs.
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Federal judge William Campbell denied the injunction, saying the plaintiffs "have not shown that immediate relief is warranted."
Yahoo Sports national college football writer Ross Dellenger reported after the judge's decision in Patterson v. NCAA that "the NCAA has won 26 of 36 eligibility cases in which a judge made an injunction decision. Eight more eligibility suits have been voluntarily dismissed and five are still pending."
The Patterson case was of some interest locally. Three seniors on the 2025 Texas Tech football roster — wide receivers Caleb Douglas and Reggie Virgil and punter Jack Burgess, all key players — also played four years without redshirting.
I suppose there was a slim possibility that, had the Patterson plaintiffs prevailed and been granted a fifth year, other athletes in the same circumstances might have seen it as precedent. The judge's ruling in the Patterson case pertained narrowly to those five players.
LUBBOCK, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 08: Cole Wisniewski #5 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders gestures to the crowd during the first half of the game against the BYU Cougars at Jones AT&T Stadium on November 08, 2025 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
However, the same judge in the same court last winter ruled in favor of Vandy quarterback Diego Pavia in his case for more eligibility. (Pavia's years over in Roswell at New Mexico Military Institute hadn't exactly been conducive to raising one's NIL profile, you know.)
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The NCAA immediately responded by granting a blanket waiver for more eligibility to 2024-25 seniors sharing the same circumstance as Pavia; i.e., they'd spent a season or seasons at non-NCAA schools, mostly junior colleges, but in the case of former Texas Tech defensive back Devynn Cromwell, in the Canadian college football system.
I don't know that Douglas and Virgil were holding out hope. Since the Red Raiders ' season ended on New Year's Day in the Orange Bowl, both announced on social media that they're turning their attention to NFL draft preparation .
Besides, the NCAA signaled last week it was standing firm. Sports attorney Mitch Gilfillan reported the NCAA emailed member schools on Jan. 7: "To the question about whether the Div. I Board would consider issuing a broader waiver if the court grants an injunction for the five student-athletes (Patterson case), there is no plan to do so. The NCAA's eligibility rules are legally defensible and provide opportunities for prospective student-athletes to compete at the Division I level."
Not that that stops the attacks on eligibility. As we covered previously, the American Football Coaches Association proposed this week allowing football players to compete in up to nine games during a redshirt season.
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How silly does that sound? The logic: You've got to push as far as you can if the NCAA and the courts aren't going to look favorably upon 5 for 5.
How about just sticking to the structure that's worked so well for the last 50-odd years?
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: What's up with 5 for 5? It's dead for now, and that's OK | Williams
