Gov. Mike DeWine has stepped into the college eligibility fight in Ohio.
On Tuesday, DeWine signed an executive order that gives the state’s public and private colleges and universities the option to let all otherwise eligible student-athletes from the high school class of 2022 compete, even with the NCAA’s current reading of its new eligibility rule, according to a news release.
The NCAA’s shift came in June, when it adopted a five-years-to-play-five-seasons model. That replaced the old setup, in which athletes could compete in four seasons over a five-year span, with the extra year often used as a redshirt season for injuries or other circumstances.
The change also tightened the rules. Instead of leaving room for interpretation on extra eligibility, the five-year clock now starts when an athlete turns 19 or first enrolls full-time in school, whichever happens first. But the 2022 high school class was not grandfathered in, and that decision has triggered legal battles around the country.
“When the rules change, fairness has to remain part of the equation,” DeWine said in the news release. “We want Ohio’s student-athletes to have the same opportunity as student-athletes in other states.”
The issue has already had real consequences in Ohio. Earlier this month, two dozen Ohio athletes were ruled ineligible after an Ohio appeals court overturned a preliminary injunction.
Courts elsewhere have not been working from the same script. In one example, defensive end Stephen Daley, a 2022 high school graduate who began at Kent State and later transferred to Indiana, was granted another season of eligibility. He is scheduled to face Ohio State in Saturday’s top-five matchup.
Lt. Governor Jim Tressel also backed DeWine’s move.
“I commend Governor DeWine’s leadership on fairness in college sports,” Tressel said in the news release. “It’s important we do not deprive our current student-athletes of the same opportunities enjoyed by their peers.”
The NCAA’s new model had already created uncertainty before it officially took hold, and that uncertainty put programs like Ohio State in a tough spot.
Former Buckeyes linebacker C.J. Hicks was in his fourth season last year, and Ryan Day’s staff had to decide whether to play him and trust the five-for-five system would be in place, or hold him out and redshirt him.
Ohio State chose the redshirt route, and that decision turned out to be the right one because the rule still had not been implemented by the end of the season. If the Buckeyes had gone the other way, Hicks would have needed to take legal action to be eligible this year, a season he is spending at South Florida.
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