The NCAA went on the offensive Friday, suing Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine after he issued an executive order that would let certain college athletes in his state keep playing despite a new eligibility rule the association says applies to them.
At the center of the fight is the Class of ’22, players who graduated high school in 2022 and are being denied a fifth year of eligibility under the NCAA’s rule approved over the summer. DeWine’s order, issued Tuesday, would allow public and private universities in Ohio to treat those athletes as eligible anyway. The NCAA responded in federal court in Ohio, with President Charlie Baker calling the move an “extraordinary step” aimed at stopping DeWine from making it “impossible for all schools to compete on a level playing field.”
The association did not soften its language in the filing. It said it was trying “to halt a misguided attempt to give Ohio colleges and universities an unfair, unprecedented and unwarranted competitive advantage in stadiums and arenas throughout the country,” and argued that “College sports, like all sports, depend on participants following the rules. (DeWine) is attempting to give Ohio institutions a hall pass to break the rules.”
The dispute immediately pulled in the Ohio Supreme Court, which said it would weigh the legality of DeWine’s order. The court paused an appeals court ruling in a related case that had declared the ’22 athletes ineligible, and ordered both sides to file briefs by next Monday. That case features basketball player Filip Borovićanin as the lead plaintiff.
Baker said the NCAA does not believe the Ohio Supreme Court’s action automatically makes those players eligible right away, and he said the organization will file arguments in that case as well.
The Ohio fight is only one piece of a broader mess. The rule has already triggered multiple court battles around the country, and the stakes are rising because a small group of basketball players could miss the upcoming season if the issue isn’t settled soon.
Among them is Minnesota swing man Cade Tyson, the Gophers’ leading scorer last season, who has been practicing with the team but did not play in Thursday’s exhibition against Omaha. Also caught up in the issue are Gonzaga transfer Javon Bennett, Cincinnati’s MJ Collins and Borovićanin, who returned to the eligible list after DeWine’s order and played in an exhibition against Tennessee on Thursday night.
The NCAA says it understood from the start that the decision would hurt some Class of ’22 players, but it viewed the alternative as worse. The association said the choice came down to weighing the hardship for those veterans against the impact on incoming recruits, many of whom would have been pushed aside if another year had been added for the older players. In the NCAA’s view, the path it took caused less damage overall.
Its lawsuit also traces the legal wave that followed the rule’s adoption, including an early federal case involving basketball player Brock Wisne that has been leaning toward the NCAA’s side. But even those wins have not stopped the barrage. Instead, the battles have spilled into state courts and kept multiplying.
“The results of this second wave of lawsuits were mixed, with the NCAA winning some and losing others,” it said. “But the lawsuits unquestionably destabilized college sports, with ever-more disruptive lawsuits challenging foundational rules at the heart of organized sport.”
That sense of uncertainty was echoed in Kentucky earlier this week, where Louisville coach Pat Kelsey testified in a similar case. Asked why he was looking for Class of ’22 players when NCAA rules prohibit it, Kelsey said: “From a coach’s standpoint, every time the NCAA says something, we all shrug our shoulders and say, ‘Is that going to stand up?
Is that a rule?’ ” He added: “We don’t think there are rules right now.
That’s why we want guardrails, we want Congress to act, we want the chaos to end. Because nobody knows what the crap is going on.
No one.”
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