Dan Lanning doesn’t expect Oregon to get much out of the NCAA’s new eligibility setup in 2026.
The Ducks coach said the switch to the new “5-for-5” model won’t really change much for his program, even though the rule has already started to reshape roster planning around college football. Under the updated system, athletes now have five years of eligibility, replacing the old redshirt structure that gave players a season they could use without burning a year.
Lanning said Oregon has looked into the possibilities, but the pool of players who actually fit the new criteria appears to be small.
“There's some pretty stiff requirements when it comes to what those guys look like, and there's not a lot of guys that fall into that window for us," he said. "Ultimately, they have to be on your roster, right?
They couldn't have had an agent, signed up to be on an NFL team, gone to a practice. Like, there's some things that restrict you from being able to come back.
So, there's some limitation there. And as we've explored it, there doesn't seem to be a lot of guys that fall in that category for us.”
The new rule applies only to certain athletes, including those who enrolled in college by age 19. That limitation matters, and it’s one reason Oregon isn’t expecting a wave of surprise additions.
The change itself was approved earlier this year, with Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman, who chairs the NCAA Division I Cabinet, describing it as a step that simplifies things for both athletes and coaches.
“With these changes, the (Division I) Cabinet has taken decisive action for the benefit of student-athletes and the system of NCAA Division I athletics,” said Josh Whitman, athletics director at Illinois and chair of the Cabinet. “For many student-athletes who enroll in college immediately after high school, these changes will result in the opportunity to potentially compete for an additional season in their chosen sport. For campus officials and coaches, this change provides rules that are simpler to administer and easier to predict for roster management decisions.”
For football coaches, the most immediate impact is on freshman planning. The old setup forced staffs to keep track of whether a player had crossed the four-game line, since appearing in more than four games would eliminate redshirt eligibility. That part of roster management is now gone under the new system.
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