Rick3 / Shutterstock.com
College football just can’t catch a break from the courtroom this month, and Wednesday brought another one.
Nineteen days after a judge in Colorado handed down a temporary restraining order that let every Class of 2022 player come back for a fifth season, a Louisiana judge issued a ruling that goes even further. This one lets more than a dozen football players return to the sport in 2026, and it comes with a big twist: the NCAA can’t enforce its own rule blocking players who signed pro contracts from playing college ball again.
That opens the door for guys who are currently on NFL rosters right now. Tampa Bay Buccaneers edge rusher Jack Pyburn and Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright were both part of the lawsuit, and Wright already entered the transfer portal on Thursday.
Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright has entered the college transfer portal, @chris_hummer and I have learned.
The former Ole Miss star is currently on the Browns’ roster. pic.twitter.com/0uvkWI7zk4— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) August 20, 2026
The ruling itself is narrow. It only covers the players named in the lawsuit, and it’s a temporary fix until an injunction hearing gets scheduled. Still, it landed like a bomb inside college football front offices, where staffers are now scrambling to figure out what it means for their rosters.
Should a program go after one of these newly eligible players? Could a guy who just got cut by an NFL team sue his way back to campus too? And how long does any of this actually hold up before something else changes the picture entirely?
Those are the exact questions front-office staffers are asking right now.
“You find the person that knows what’s going on and you let me know,” one SEC director of player personnel told CBS Sports.
Here’s what CBS Sports is hearing from around the sport about the Louisiana case and what it could mean with the season kicking off in a week.
What’s stopping Diego Pavia from returning to college football as legal challenges to NCAA mount?
Are more lawsuits on the way?
Yes. A lot more.
Colorado District Judge Charlotte Sweeney clarified earlier this month that her July ruling wouldn’t override the NCAA’s rule on players who’d signed NFL contracts. Even so, teams kept quietly staying in touch with agents for players in that exact category, just in case something changed.
Plenty of players with NFL contracts wanted to test the waters on a college return, but nobody wanted to be the one to actually file the lawsuit that would test it.
Now that hesitation is gone.
That’s why people around the front-office world expect Wednesday’s ruling to, in the words of one personnel staffer, “open the floodgates” for similar suits.
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” a Big 12 general manager told CBS Sports. “We need a player or two. Saturate the market, baby.”
Most sources expect the next round of lawsuits to come from players who signed with NFL teams and got cut, guys who are out of work right now, similar to several names already in Wednesday’s suit. But sources also think current roster players, especially undrafted rookies who suspect they won’t survive final cuts, could file their own suits before the NFL’s Aug. 30 roster deadline.
Are teams lining up to add players?
Not really, no.
Sources tell CBS Sports that LSU and Ole Miss are exploring both bringing back their own former players and adding names through the transfer portal. A handful of other championship-contending programs are quietly doing the same kind of homework.
But plenty of teams want no part of this. Some won’t touch a transfer right now, and some don’t even want their own former players back.
Coaches and personnel staffers alike are weighing how dropping a new player into the locker room a week before kickoff could mess with team chemistry.
Does any of this affect SEC transfer rules?
That’s the big question hanging over the league right now.
After the Colorado ruling, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey sent schools a memo saying conference rules still stand; SEC players can’t transfer to another league school once the transfer deadline has already passed.
Some sources believe a program like LSU could try to find a way around that anyway. They point out that the wording in Wednesday’s lawsuit might create room for a player to jump from one SEC school to another. Other sources at different SEC schools still think the league’s rule will hold firm no matter what.
Bottom line: nobody actually knows yet, and it’s become one of the hottest topics in the sport this week.
CBS Sports reached out to the SEC for comment on its intraconference transfer policy but hadn’t heard back by publication.
Can these guys still make an NFL roster?
Yes. Absolutely yes.
Take Pyburn. Sources believe he’s got a real shot at cracking Tampa Bay’s 53-man roster, especially after recording two sacks in his preseason debut.
People close to several of these players, plus sources at schools that could land them, caution against assuming a lawsuit means someone’s already packing for campus.
A player could still land a 53-man spot, or even take a practice squad job, rather than heading back to college. For someone like Pyburn, joining the lawsuit is really just about keeping his options open.
Not everyone sees it that innocently, though.
“There’s a certain line where the NFL has to be pissed,” a Big 12 GM said. “The agent for Pyburn is smart, because I’m assuming he’s trying to force the Bucs to say, ‘You have to roster him in the 53 or else we’re not going on the practice squad.’ But the NFL is not going to want people using college leverage on them.”
What happens with roster limits?
The Louisiana ruling stops the NCAA from enforcing its transfer restrictions, but it doesn’t touch roster limits at all.
Teams are still capped at 105 athletes under NCAA rules. With the season only a week or two away, almost no program has multiple open spots sitting around. That’s exactly why some schools already turned away players hoping to come back under the Colorado ruling; there simply wasn’t room, or coaches didn’t want to risk disrupting the locker room this close to kickoff.
That said, front-office sources admit they’re willing to get creative if it means landing a talented player.
“The whole roster limit thing is a complete facade, because you’ll make rules,” an SEC front-office staffer told CBS Sports. “You can cut a walk-on or medical guys, and it doesn’t count against the 105.”
Others say the smart move is planning as if the limit could disappear entirely.
“You almost have to prepare as if there are no limits so that you’re prepared if it’s changed,” an SEC GM said.
Getting a player on the field takes time
Winning the right to return doesn’t mean a player suits up the next Saturday. Beyond learning a new offense or defense and getting back into game shape, there’s a mountain of paperwork teams have to sort through before a player is actually cleared to play.
One Big 12 general manager said his staff has spent weeks just trying to fully clear a player who got an extra year of eligibility through the Colorado case.
Players might have to repay agent fees, or, in cases tied to the Louisiana lawsuit, hand back any professional earnings. There’s also a formal NCAA compliance review that has to happen before eligibility gets sorted out.
“Not as simple as, ‘Oh, you’ve got an extra year, you can walk out and play in games,’” the Big 12 GM said.
What about the NCAA’s appeal in the Colorado case?
College football’s legal landscape is a mess right now, with so many lawsuits stacking up in different state courts. But the ruling that matters most is still the Colorado TRO (temporary restraining order), which gave every Class of 2022 athlete an extra season.
The NCAA is appealing that ruling to the 10th Circuit, hoping to get it thrown out entirely.
If the NCAA wins that appeal, the Colorado ruling gets wiped out, and thousands of 2022-class players would instantly become ineligible again. That group includes Indiana defensive linemen Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt, both of whom returned to the reigning national champions because of the original Colorado decision.
Kellan Wyatt, Stephen Daley returning to Indiana in 2026: Hoosiers get two star DEs back after court ruling
“I’m starting to wonder if the cart getting before the horse is going to make people involved in that decision look at it and go ‘This is a mess,’” a Power Four GM told CBS Sports.
Players tied to separate lawsuits, like Pyburn’s, would stay eligible even if the Colorado ruling gets overturned.
So if the NCAA does win its appeal, it probably just triggers another round of individual lawsuits from players trying to win back the eligibility they gained back on July 31.
That uncertainty is basically baked into the rest of the 2026 season now; this eligibility tug-of-war isn’t going away anytime soon.
Some players will win TROs or injunctions mid-season. Others will lose their appeals and disappear from rosters just as fast as they showed up. It’s not unlike what happened with Charles Bediako in Alabama basketball last season. His eligibility became a day-to-day guessing game after he returned to Tuscaloosa following multiple years in the G League, and he ended up playing just five games before getting ruled ineligible.
