"NCAA would grant 5 years of eligibility" - CFB insider reports seismic shift in college football landscape after 12-team CFP expansion

The NCAA has been caught in the storm of the ever-changing landscape of college sports in the past few years, and most recently, it has emerged that further changes are in the pipeline. During Tuesday's segment of "CBS Sports," college football insider Jon Rothstein said that the governing body was considering granting four years of eligibility across all sports after the change to the 12-team College Football Playoff.

"According to an NCAA official, conversations have been ongoing that they would grant five years of eligibility moving forward," Rothstein said. "Not four for players of all sports. This is something that will continue to be discussed in the early part of 2025. What this would mean in terms of logistics means, five years would include a redshirt year if there's injury.

"There's a lot of people obviously at the body who are cognizant of what's happened academically with so many players transferring right now. This would help more players get degrees. There's a lot of gray areas still, but the bottom line is this is a potential seismic change to the college sports landscape again is potentially coming to the forefront."

The Diego Pavia case that put the NCAA on the defensive

In December, Vanderbilt Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against the governing body's current redshirt rule regarding junior college eligibility which Judge William Campbell of the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee granted, allowing him to be eligible for next season.

The motion argued that the governing body's rule violated antitrust laws and the authority would be able to appeal the ruling.

In mid-December, the body's Division I Board of Directors availed a waiver to student-athletes allowing them to be eligible for next season if they played for a non-NCAA program while being ineligible.

Heitner Legal founder Darren Heitner reported the news on the historic waiver on X.

"NEWS: The Division I Board of Directors has granted a waiver to permit athletes who attended and competed at a non-NCAAA school for 1 or more years to remain eligible and compete in 2025-26 if those athletes would have otherwise used their final season of competition during the 2024-25 academic year, and meet all other eligibility requirements (e.g., progress toward degree, five-year period of eligibility)," Heitner tweeted.

"The body has also filed a notice of appeal of the court’s ruling in the Diego Pavia case."

The landscape of college football is changing quickly after the historic NIL ruling in 2021 which has been quickly followed by the historic House vs. NCAA settlement that ushered in the age of revenue sharing between programs and student-athletes.