Ohio Order Challenges NCAA Rule on Fifth-Year

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed an executive order Tuesday allowing colleges and universities in the state to decide whether athletes who graduated from high school in 2022 can compete for a fifth season. The order puts a consequential decision in schools' hands at a moment when the NCAA's eligibility policy points them toward a different answer.

For an athlete hoping to play another year, that difference reaches beyond a line on a roster. A school's answer can shape whether the athlete plans to train for another season, seeks a place on a team or moves on from college competition. For the school, it raises a separate question: What happens when a decision permitted by Ohio's governor runs into a rule administered by a national association?

The dispute concerns an age-based NCAA eligibility policy that took effect this summer. Multiple state and federal cases have challenged its implementation. DeWine's order identifies athletes by their high school graduation year, while the policy under challenge concerns age. That leaves schools to work out how the two criteria interact when deciding an individual case. Without the order's precise provisions or the NCAA policy text, its enforcement mechanism, covered sports and effect on any particular athlete cannot be determined.

Two Decision-Makers, One Athlete

An NCAA eligibility rule works across schools that compete within the association's system. A governor's order operates through state authority. Ohio can tell institutions in Ohio how it wants them to approach a decision; it cannot, simply by issuing an order, rewrite the NCAA's rule for every member school. The order may have limited legal force, even as it could influence how eligibility decisions unfold.

That tension gives Ohio schools a difficult assignment. If a college approves a fifth season for an athlete covered by the order, it still needs to understand how the NCAA will treat that athlete's participation. If it declines, it must account for the governor's instruction that schools may make the choice. Neither decision can be reduced to a slogan about athlete freedom or NCAA control. Each requires someone to take responsibility for the athlete's status.

The strongest case for DeWine's approach starts with the people whose eligibility is at stake. A policy introduced this summer can change the expectations of athletes already several years into college. Those who finished high school in 2022 have had to plan their education and athletic careers over more than one academic year. Giving a school room to assess an additional season could prevent a broad rule from deciding every case without regard to an athlete's circumstances. That is an argument for discretion, although discretion still requires a school to say yes.

The NCAA has a substantial interest in a rule that applies across its national system. Opponents from different states compete against one another, and eligibility decisions made by one institution affect games involving others. If each state can create a different route to participation, schools may face conflicting obligations and athletes may encounter different opportunities depending on where they enroll. That is a practical problem for a national competition system, regardless of whether a court ultimately accepts any particular legal argument about the order.

The possibility of litigation is already part of the dispute: DeWine's order could face a lawsuit. A challenge would have to address what the order directs schools to do and how that direction interacts with NCAA governance. Meanwhile, the existing state and federal challenges to the age-based policy concern its implementation. The governor's action adds another route for contesting eligibility, with schools now positioned where those routes meet.

The Cost of an Unsettled Answer

Eligibility decisions rarely arrive in isolation. A college planning its next roster needs to know how many athletes can return. A coach considering a place for a new player needs an answer about an existing one. An athlete considering another season needs to know whether that season is an option before making plans around it. Uncertainty can consume time even if the final answer eventually favors the athlete.

Scholarships can make the stakes sharper. An athlete and a school may have to make financial and academic plans while participation remains unsettled. The order does not itself establish what scholarship decision a school must make, and eligibility for competition does not answer every question about support for another year. Those decisions sit alongside the playing decision, often on a timetable that will not wait for an abstract fight over authority to end.

School-by-school discretion could also produce unequal results among athletes covered by the same Ohio order. One institution might be prepared to approve a fifth season; another might be reluctant while the NCAA's position remains in force. Athletes could receive different answers to the same request because their schools assess the risk differently. Conversely, discretion gives institutions a chance to consider individual circumstances instead of treating a graduation year as the only relevant fact. The order's practical effect will depend on how colleges use the choice it gives them.

This is a labor issue as much as a governance dispute. College athletes have a finite period in which they can compete, and a rule about its endpoint affects the terms on which they participate. Administrators, association officials, state leaders and courts can all influence that period. The athlete has the most immediate interest in the decision, yet cannot settle a conflict between Ohio and the NCAA alone.

That imbalance also limits what an executive order can offer. State intervention may give athletes another opening to seek a season, and it may push institutions or the NCAA to respond. It cannot by itself supply the predictable, shared process an athlete needs when planning a year of school and competition. The value of the order to any 2022 graduate will be measured in an actual eligibility decision, rather than in the governor's announcement.

The next answers will come from the colleges asked to decide fifth-season requests and from the NCAA's response to those decisions. For the athlete standing between them, the question is narrower than the legal fight: Who can say yes to another season, and will that yes hold?