CHARLOTTE — ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips is a big proponent of a new rule recently adopted by the NCAA.
Back in May, the Division I Cabinet voted unanimously to approve a sweeping overhaul of eligibility rules for student-athletes, permitting Division I student-athletes up to five years of eligibility if they enroll in college no later than the academic year after their 19th birthday.
The rule change will be effective for all prospects who initially enroll full-time in college in fall 2026 or later.
It’s a rule change that Phillips is fully on board with.
“Common sense to me is something that we can all use a little bit more of, including the commissioner, Phillips said during the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte on Wednesday. “Having five years to play seems really fair for a student-athlete.”
“Five years, beginning your 19th birthday, allowing you to play till 24, where the old model was an 18-to-22-year window. That has to be the foundational piece of how we move forward from an eligibility standpoint.”
However, players who exhausted their eligibility last season in their respective sports are not eligible for the extra year. Numerous players fitting that criteria have already filed suit with local courts seeking another season of eligibility. Some have already received temporary injunctions allowing them to play next season.
And that is where the problem lies in Phillips’ eyes. He believes the NCAA’s member institutions need to follow the rules in place instead of throwing support behind a player who is planning to sue the organization. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the eligibility suits will be slowing down anytime soon.
“Where there’s trouble in the system is if you don’t like the NCAA ruling or a conference ruling, that you’re ineligible to play because you’ve exhausted that eligibility, you’ve played too much, whatever the circumstances are,” Phillips said. “You just go to the local courthouse in whatever community that school is, it’s going to be hard for a judge to not take the side of a student-athlete, an 18- 19- 20- 22-year-old. I get it. But that becomes a problem.”
