The NFL is usually the end of the road. Not this time. A Colorado judge has opened the door for 2022 recruits to get another college season. Some of those players are already with NFL teams, chasing roster spots and getting preseason reps. Now they could leave that behind, jump into the transfer portal and head back to college for one more year.
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A Louisiana judge has granted 16 former college football players, several of them already on NFL rosters, a temporary restraining order allowing them to enter the transfer portal and chase one more college season. The order traces back to a Colorado ruling by Judge Charlotte Sweeney on July 31, which found that players from the 2022 recruiting class deserved the same fifth season of eligibility the NCAA now grants under its new “five-for-five” rule.
However, Sweeney drew a clear line days later, clarifying on August 2 that her order didn’t touch transfer portal rules and that NCAA restrictions still applied to any player who’d already signed an NFL contract. That left a gap for players already in the league, and a new Louisiana lawsuit, overseen by Judge William Jorden in Baton Rouge, is what actually closed it.
On3’s Pete Nakos first reported the Louisiana ruling, which covers former LSU edge rusher Jack Pyburn and former Ole Miss tight end Dae’Quan Wright, among others. Pyburn is currently with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Wright is with the Cleveland Browns.
The timing is almost absurd. Pyburn had already played in an NFL preseason game the previous Friday, recording two sacks for Tampa Bay, and carries $115,000 in guaranteed money on his contract this year. Then, on Thursday, he filed suit against the NCAA seeking a preliminary injunction that would give him the option to return to school. FOX Sports‘ Greg Auman summed up the strange position it puts him in.
“This Jack Pyburn story is complicated, but the Bucs have his NFL rights from a signed contract,” Auman wrote on X. “He got a $15,000 signing bonus, but him leaving the Bucs would likely void his $100k in guaranteed salary. Whenever he returned to NFL, Bucs would have his rights. His agents have not returned calls seeking clarity on his intent.”
Pyburn played three seasons at Florida before transferring to LSU for his final year in 2025, where he started 11 games and recorded 52 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, and two sacks. He went undrafted and signed with the Buccaneers as a free agent. The Louisiana order gives him and the other 15 players a week to enter the transfer portal, and it blocks the NCAA from enforcing its restitution and so-called ghost transfer rules against them in the meantime. It’s only a temporary order, but for now, it’s an opening the NCAA had otherwise closed.
The list includes several recognizable names from the SEC and beyond. Former Ole Miss DT Zxavian Harris, safety Wydett Williams, and Wright are among them, alongside James Madison LB Trent Hendrick, Oregon State RB Anthony Hankerson (currently with the Seattle Seahawks), Notre Dame DL Junior Tuihalamaka, South Carolina safety DQ Smith, and SMU RB TJ Harden.
None of these players are established NFL stars. Most went undrafted and are fighting for roster spots. Wright is probably the biggest name in the group, having earned second-team All-SEC honors at Ole Miss, catching 39 passes for 635 yards in 2025, and drawing an NFL Combine invitation before signing with Philadelphia, getting cut, and landing in Cleveland. Hendrick was the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year last season with 106 tackles, seven tackles for loss, and two forced fumbles, and has spent time with both the Chiefs and Browns this offseason. Harris started all 15 games for Ole Miss last season. These aren’t players just looking to hang around campus for another year.
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The mess started with the NCAA’s new eligibility model. In June, the NCAA changed its rules to allow athletes to play five seasons within a five-year window. But the change didn’t give that same opportunity to players from the 2022 recruiting class who had already used four seasons. That created a pretty obvious problem. The lawsuits followed.
More than 100 athletes are now suing the NCAA in various cases, seeking another season of college sports. Their argument is that the NCAA is giving future athletes five seasons while denying the same opportunity to players who could have received it under the new rules. Then the Colorado case blew the door open a little more.
On July 31, Judge Charlotte Sweeney ruled that players who started college in 2022-23 could come back for one more season in 2026-27. That ruling gave those players another year. It didn’t give them a way to jump into the transfer portal. And that’s where the Louisiana case comes in. The case fills both of those gaps for the 16 players covered by it, and players still under NFL deals have already expressed interest in being released to take advantage of it. If their teams let them go by September 1, the order allows them to join a college program in time for the season.
The case’s next real test comes fast. Louisiana’s first hearing is scheduled for August 31 in Baton Rouge, just days before the college football season kicks off, and the NCAA is separately appealing Sweeney’s original ruling to the Tenth Circuit. Until either of those plays out, players like Pyburn are left weighing an NFL roster spot against a legal window that, a month ago, nobody expected to exist.