Counting Junior-College Years: Diego Pavia and the Eligibility Lawsuits

Timeline

1. 2020–2021Pavia plays two seasons at New Mexico Military Institute, a junior college, winning a 2021 NJCAA national title.
2. 2022–2024Pavia plays two seasons at New Mexico State and one at Vanderbilt.
3. Fall 2024Pavia sues the NCAA under the Sherman Act, challenging the rule counting junior-college seasons.
4. Dec 18, 2024A federal judge in Nashville enjoins the NCAA from applying the rule to keep Pavia out of the 2025 season.
5. Dec 23, 2024The Division I Board of Directors approves a waiver for former non-NCAA athletes whose final season was 2024-25.
6. Jul 16, 2025The Seventh Circuit reverses an injunction that had given Wisconsin's Nyzier Fourqurean a fifth season.
7. Oct 1, 2025The Sixth Circuit dismisses the NCAA's appeal in Pavia as moot.
8. Dec 26, 2025Twenty-six former junior-college players who joined Pavia's suit seek eligibility for 2026-27 and beyond.
9. Jan 15, 2026Judge Campbell denies a fifth season to five redshirt players in Patterson v. NCAA.
10. Jun 23, 2026The Division I Cabinet unanimously adopts an age-based, five-year eligibility model.

The ethical issues

• Fair treatment: whether counting junior-college seasons treats one group of athletes worse than others who also play while older.
• Who decides: whether eligibility should be set by the NCAA, by courts or by Congress.
• Zero-sum rosters: an extra season for one athlete may cost another a roster spot or pay.
• Consistency and due process when outcomes depend on which court an athlete sues in.
• Whether eligibility rules protect an educational model or restrain a labor market.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
Former junior-college athletes	Fair access to Division I seasons and the compensation that now comes with them.
High school recruits and younger players	Roster spots and playing time that older players might otherwise take.
NCAA and member schools	Predictable, enforceable rules and limited litigation.
Junior colleges	Remaining a viable route into Division I.
Courts	Applying antitrust law without becoming de facto eligibility regulators.
Congress	Whether to legislate rules for college sport.

The case

For decades, the NCAA’s eligibility rules were treated as internal housekeeping: an athlete got four seasons of competition, to be used within five years of first enrolling in college. Once athletes could be paid, through name, image and likeness deals and later direct revenue sharing, an extra season became worth real money, and athletes began asking courts whether those limits were lawful restraints on a labor market. The case that opened the floodgates came from a quarterback whose path ran through a junior college.

Background

Diego Pavia was a champion high school wrestler and an undersized quarterback whose only NCAA offers came from Division II programs. In 2020 he enrolled at New Mexico Military Institute, a two-year junior college in the National Junior College Athletic Association. He played eight games in a season shortened by COVID-19 and in 2021 led the school to an NJCAA national championship. He then played two seasons at New Mexico State before transferring to Vanderbilt, where in 2024 he helped beat top-ranked Alabama on the way to the school’s first bowl-eligible season since 2018.^[1] He believed he could earn more than $1 million in NIL compensation in 2025, according to the Sixth Circuit’s account of the record.^[1]

The rules and governance

Three rules stood in the way. Division I Bylaw 12.8 limits athletes to four seasons of “intercollegiate competition” in a sport within five calendar years of first full-time enrollment. Bylaw 12.02.6 defines intercollegiate competition to include seasons played at “a two-year or a four-year collegiate institution,” so junior-college seasons count. The NCAA did not count Pavia’s COVID-shortened 2020 season, but his 2021 junior-college season did count, which meant he had used four seasons by the end of 2024.^[1] A fourth rule raised the stakes for schools: the “rule of restitution,” Bylaw 12.11.4.2, lets the NCAA penalize a school if an athlete plays under a court order that is later reversed.^[1][2]

Pavia’s claim rested on Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which bars agreements that unreasonably restrain trade. Since the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston, courts have applied antitrust law to NCAA compensation rules. Judge Amul Thapar noted that the Supreme Court had never analyzed NCAA eligibility rules.^[1]

The injunction and the waiver

Pavia sued in fall 2024. On December 18, 2024, Chief Judge William L. Campbell Jr. of the Middle District of Tennessee granted a preliminary injunction barring the NCAA from enforcing the junior-college rule to keep Pavia out of the 2025 season, and barring it from using the restitution rule against Pavia, Vanderbilt or any school he played for.^[2]

Five days later, on December 23, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved a blanket waiver. Athletes who had used at least one season at a non-NCAA school, such as a junior college, an NAIA school or an international institution, and whose final season would otherwise have been 2024-25 could compete in 2025-26 if they met all other requirements, including the five-year clock. The relief did not extend to athletes who had used four seasons at NCAA schools.^[3] The NCAA appealed the injunction anyway.

A wave of lawsuits

Other athletes followed. Sportico reported in December 2025 that more than three dozen “Pavia lawsuits” had been filed by former junior-college and Division II players.^[5] In a later concurrence in the Pavia appeal, Sixth Circuit Judge Whitney Hermandorfer cited federal courts in New Jersey and Nevada that had estimated individual athletes’ potential lost compensation at up to $650,000 and $500,000.^[1]

The results diverged. In Wisconsin, a district court had granted football player Nyzier Fourqurean an injunction to play a fifth season. On July 16, 2025, the Seventh Circuit reversed. Judge Amy St. Eve wrote that Alston had not settled market definition, that Fourqurean had not tried to define a relevant market, and that his own exclusion “alone does not suffice to show likely anticompetitive effects.”^[4] Judge Kenneth Ripple dissented.^[1]

On October 1, 2025, the Sixth Circuit dismissed the NCAA’s Pavia appeal as moot. Because the waiver already let Pavia play in 2025, a ruling either way would have no practical effect.^[1] Two judges nonetheless wrote separately. Judge Thapar listed open questions: whether Pavia had defined a market, why junior colleges themselves were not suing, and how the rule interacted with Division II and III seasons. He warned that courts could “become the de facto appeals body” for eligibility decisions affecting more than half a million athletes, adding that judges are not good “central planners.”^[1] Judge Hermandorfer took a different emphasis. The NCAA had listed preventing the “crowding out of younger, less experienced athletes” as an aim of the rule, and she wrote that, as she understood the law, the NCAA cannot shield a restraint from scrutiny merely by labeling it “eligibility” related. She also pointed out that the NCAA allows older athletes in through prep years, waivers and redshirting.^[1]

The next round

After the 2025 season, in which he finished second in Heisman Trophy voting, Pavia said he intended to enter the 2026 NFL draft.^[5] On December 26, 2025, 26 other former junior-college players who had joined his suit asked Judge Campbell to block the NCAA’s five-year rule, the junior-college rule and a three-year limit on former junior-college players for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 seasons.^[6] They argued that other older athletes, including prep-school players and former professionals in other sports, received five years to play four seasons, and Pavia’s expert argued that schools gained financially by replacing experienced players with cheaper freshmen.^[5] An NCAA spokesperson said that repeated lawsuits “with differing outcomes” underscored the need for congressional help.^[5]

A separate group of redshirt players took a different tack. In Patterson v. NCAA, five players who had already played four Division I seasons asked for a fifth. On January 15, 2026, Judge Campbell denied the request. He noted that, under the House settlement, schools had roster caps and a direct-pay cap of about $20.5 million, so the plaintiffs “would almost certainly take a position or compensation that otherwise would have been allocated to someone else.” He wrote, “Does four years of competition strike a perfect competitive balance? Maybe it does. Maybe it does not,” and concluded that the record could not justify overturning the rule.^[7] On3, citing reporter Ross Dellenger, reported that the NCAA had won 26 of 36 eligibility cases in which a judge ruled on an injunction, and that the NCAA had no plans to adopt a “five-for-five” policy.^[8]

Aftermath

Five months later the NCAA changed course. On June 23, 2026, the Division I Cabinet unanimously approved an age-based model: athletes get up to five years of eligibility if they enroll in college no later than the academic year after their 19th birthday. The change eliminates season-of-competition limits, redshirt rules and nearly all waivers. NCAA President Charlie Baker said the change removed rules “that have proven difficult to administer in the current litigious environment.” The model applies fully to athletes enrolling in fall 2027. Current athletes, and those enrolling in fall 2026, get whichever of the old and new rules is more favorable to them, but athletes who used their final season in 2025-26 receive nothing more.^[9] Because the clock is tied to first full-time enrollment at any college, junior-college years still fall inside it.^[9] Pavia’s underlying lawsuit was still pending in early 2026.^[8]

The core dilemma

Should the NCAA be able to count seasons at non-NCAA schools against an athlete’s Division I limit, when doing so costs a particular athlete substantial income and other older athletes are allowed to play? Or is a firm, uniformly applied clock a legitimate way to keep college sport tied to the student life cycle and to keep roster spots open for younger players?

Competing values

• Equal treatment vs. administrability: Judging each athlete’s path individually may be fairer, but bright-line rules are easier to apply and harder to game.
• Individual opportunity vs. opportunity for others: Under roster and pay caps, an extra year for one athlete may take away a spot from another.
• Institutional authority vs. legal accountability: The NCAA wants to set its own rules; antitrust law asks whether those rules unreasonably restrain a market.
• Consistency vs. responsiveness: Changing rules midstream helps some athletes and disadvantages those whose eligibility had already ended.

Strongest arguments

For the challengers: Counting a season at a junior college, where Pavia earned no NIL money, as if it were a Division I season penalizes athletes who took a route open to late developers and those with fewer resources. The NCAA already admits older athletes through prep years, redshirts, waivers and former professionals, which weakens the claim that the rule is necessary. Now that athletes are paid, an agreement among schools not to employ a class of workers deserves real scrutiny.^[1][5]

For the NCAA: Every eligibility rule excludes someone. A firm limit keeps college sport connected to typical enrollment and graduation patterns and keeps roster spots open for younger athletes. Rulings for individual plaintiffs created inconsistency and invited a flood of new suits, and with capped rosters, the gains for one plaintiff come at the expense of others.^[7][9]

Applying the frameworks

Justice & fairness (Rawls)

Behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing whether you would be a highly recruited high school star or an overlooked prospect who needed a junior college to develop, you might reject a rule that treats the second path as equivalent to Division I play. But you might also not know whether you would be the 18-year-old whose roster spot depends on older players moving on. Rawls’s concern for the least advantaged points in more than one direction here, and the question is which group is worse off.

Utilitarian

A utilitarian would count the gains to athletes who win more seasons (income, development, a shot at the NFL) and to fans of their teams, against the losses to displaced younger players, the cost of uncertainty for schools, and the burden of piecemeal litigation. The judges’ repeated call for economic evidence reflects this calculation: without data on market effects, it is hard to know which rule produces the best overall outcome.

Rights-based

From a rights perspective, the question is whether athletes have a claim to compete for paid opportunities without a collective boycott by the institutions that employ them, and whether that claim outweighs an association’s right to set membership terms. The answer depends partly on whether college athletes are seen primarily as students under an educational model or as workers in a labor market, a question the law has not yet settled.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue: An eligibility rule that counts junior-college seasons now carries large financial consequences, and those affected argue that it treats them unfairly.
2. Gather facts: Who is affected, how many roster spots shift, what other older athletes are allowed to play, and what evidence exists on market effects?
3. Test options: Keep the rule; grant blanket waivers; stop counting non-NCAA seasons; adopt a single age-based clock; seek federal legislation.
4. Check codes and law: NCAA bylaws, the Sherman Act as interpreted in Alston, appellate rulings from different circuits, and settlement-imposed roster and pay caps.
5. Decide and document: Whatever rule is chosen, state its purpose and the evidence for it, and apply it consistently.
6. Communicate and follow up: Publish transition rules, explain who gains and loses, and review the effects on rosters and junior-college pathways.

What’s settled and what’s contested

• Settled: Pavia won a preliminary injunction for 2025; the NCAA issued a blanket waiver for 2025-26; the Seventh Circuit reversed the Fourqurean injunction; the Sixth Circuit dismissed the Pavia appeal as moot without ruling on the merits; the NCAA adopted an age-based model in June 2026.^{[1][2][3][4][9]}
• Contested: whether the junior-college rule violates antitrust law; how the relevant market should be defined; whether eligibility rules should be treated as educational or economic; and whether the new model treats former junior-college athletes fairly.

Why this case matters

Pavia’s lawsuit showed that once college athletes are paid, eligibility rules look like rules about who may work. The courts’ split responses, the NCAA’s waiver and its later overhaul illustrate how governing bodies behave under legal pressure, and how changing rules midstream creates winners and losers. The case asks students to weigh fairness to individual athletes against the coherence of a whole system.

Key terms

Distributive justice

Fairness in how scarce opportunities, resources, benefits and burdens are shared.

Due process

Fair procedures before a sanction: notice, a chance to respond, an impartial decision-maker and a right of appeal.

Institutional accountability

Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.

Stakeholders

Everyone with something at stake in a decision: athletes, coaches, parents, officials, fans, employees, sponsors, media, communities and regulators, including the less visible ones.

Agency

An athlete’s ability to make decisions and act independently about their body, career and voice.

Fair play

Integrity put into practice: respecting both the written rules and the spirit of competition.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. Is it fair to count a season at a junior college the same as a season at an NCAA school? Why or why not?
2. Should courts decide eligibility questions, or should those be left to the NCAA, athletes' representatives or Congress?
3. The NCAA issued a waiver for Pavia's group but kept defending the rule. Was that a principled or a pragmatic move?
4. Who bears the cost when an older athlete wins another season under a roster cap?
5. Does an age-based five-year clock solve the fairness problems raised by the lawsuits?

Sources

1. Pavia v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 24-6153 (opinion) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
2. Pavia v. NCAA, Preliminary Injunction Order (Dec. 18, 2024) — U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee (via CourtListener)
3. NCAA Division I Board of Directors Waiver Guidance for 2025-26 Eligibility: Question and Answer Document — NCAA
4. Fourqurean v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 25-1187 (opinion) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (via GovInfo)
5. Heisman Runner-Up Pavia Seeks Court Order to Keep Playing — Sportico
6. Pavia v. NCAA, Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Dec. 26, 2025) — U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee (via CourtListener)
7. Patterson v. NCAA, Memorandum and Order (Jan. 15, 2026) — U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee (via CourtListener)
8. Judge denies preliminary injunction in Patterson v. NCAA eligibility lawsuit — On3
9. Division I adopts age-based eligibility model — NCAA