Back in my day, if you and your declining hairline wanted to participate in college football as a 26-year-old, you had to get drafted by Major League Baseball out of high school, toil around the minors for five years, then take up football again.
It wasn’t a common occurrence, but it did happen occasionally. There’s a new route to playing college football as an advanced mid-20s lad, though, thanks to Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who successfully sued to recoup his years as a junior college player from the NCAA.
Pavia and his lawyers argued that his time as a junior college player shouldn’t count against his NCAA eligibility, since he couldn’t profit from his name, image, and likeness. The NCAA is appealing the ruling in his favor but has also issued a blanket waiver for all former JUCO players who had otherwise exhausted their eligibility in 2024.
Specifically, for NC State, this means that both Anthony Belton and Bishop Fitzgerald could play college football next fall if they want to. A lot of programs are going to have to sort this one out, as there’s a bit of a potential curveball here for a lot of immediate roster planning. State has been operating (and spending) as though Belton were gone, for example. Now what?
This might be one of those developments that feels like a bigger deal in the moment than it ends up being, since many ex-JUCO guys aren’t going to want the extra eligibility for a variety of reasons (ready for the NFL, tired of football, not good at football, etc.) but this does suddenly open a new avenue for extending college football careers, and potentially more complicated roster management.