A large group of college athletes who thought they were finished got another season on Friday, by court order.

U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney, in Denver, granted a class-wide preliminary injunction covering Division I players from the high school class of 2022 who used up their fourth season of eligibility in spring 2026, ESPN reported. They are now eligible to play in 2026-27.

The class as certified is broad: CBS Sports reported it covers "all persons in the United States who began to play in collegiate sports in the 2022-2023 season, competed in NCAA Division I sports, and completed four years of eligibility" by the end of the 2025-26 season.

What the rule was

The NCAA approved a rule in June known as five-for-five: five seasons of competition within a five-year window that starts at full-time enrollment or the academic year after a player's 19th birthday, whichever comes first, ESPN reported. Crucially, the association set it to begin with athletes enrolling in fall 2027.

That start date is the whole dispute. Athletes who entered college in 2022 sit just outside the new window, and Friday's order pulls them inside it for one year.

What an injunction is, and is not

A preliminary injunction is a temporary order that suspends a rule while a case proceeds. It is not a judgment that the NCAA broke the law, and it can be narrowed, stayed or reversed on appeal. ESPN reported the ruling is expected to be appealed, though it did not confirm that an appeal has been filed.

That distinction is not academic here, because the calendar is tight. The transfer portal opens on August 3 and closes a week later, on August 10, CBS Sports reported. Athletes and programs have days, not months, to act on a ruling that could still change.

Among the players CBS Sports named as covered are Donovan Dent, a former UCLA guard, along with Jordan Pope of Texas, Bruce Thornton of Ohio State, Tamin Lipsey of Iowa State, Denzel Aberdeen of Florida, Braden Smith, formerly of Purdue, Darrion Williams, formerly of NC State, MJ Collins of Cincinnati and Filip Borovicanin of Xavier.

The NCAA's answer is Congress

NCAA President Charlie Baker did not argue the merits in public. He argued the venue.

"Today's rulings and the chaos they bring to college sports are exactly why it's time to pass this bill," Baker said, ESPN reported, referring to pending federal legislation that would give the association antitrust protection. The association's position across a run of recent eligibility cases has been consistent: it cannot set national rules if each of them can be suspended district by district, and only Congress can fix that.

The counter-position, equally consistent, is that the rules keep losing in court because they restrain athletes' ability to compete, and that a statute exempting the NCAA from antitrust law would settle the question by removing it rather than answering it.

Friday's order does not resolve that. It gives one cohort of athletes one more year while the larger fight continues.