NCAA Sues Ohio Governor Over Executive Order Letting Class of 2022 Bypass Eligibility Limits

The NCAA sued Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in federal court Friday, seeking to block an executive order that tells Ohio colleges and universities they do not have to enforce NCAA eligibility limits for certain athletes in the high school Class of 2022. The filing marks an extraordinary escalation in a fight over whether a state can override the eligibility rules member schools have agreed to follow.

The lawsuit was filed Oct. 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, as Case No. 26-1452. The plaintiff is the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the defendant is Richard Michael “Mike” DeWine in his official capacity as governor. The NCAA is asking the court for declaratory and injunctive relief — meaning a ruling that the order is unlawful and an order blocking enforcement — on three grounds: that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, violates the First Amendment rights of the association, and exceeds the governor’s authority under Ohio law.

DeWine signed Executive Order 2026-04D on Oct. 13. As quoted in the NCAA’s complaint, the order says: “No State institution of higher education or private college or university in Ohio shall uphold any rule, requirement, standard, or other limitation that prevents a student-athlete of that institution or college in the Class of 2022 from fully participating in intercollegiate athletics in the 2026–27 academic year…” In practical terms, the order bars Ohio schools from enforcing NCAA restrictions that would keep those athletes from playing next school year, even if they already have completed four seasons or otherwise exhausted eligibility under NCAA rules.

NCAA President Charlie Baker said the association filed suit at the direction of the NCAA Board of Governors and Division I Board of Directors. “The Executive Order is unlawful because Governor DeWine lacks the authority to permit Ohio colleges and universities to disregard the rules they have agreed to follow by rostering ineligible student-athletes,” Baker said in an NCAA announcement Friday. The NCAA argues the order would give Ohio schools a competitive advantage by allowing them to keep or add athletes the association considers ineligible, undercutting a uniform national system for eligibility.

The dispute grew out of a June 2026 rules change in Division I. The NCAA adopted an age-based eligibility model under which a student-athlete’s five-year eligibility clock starts at the earlier of the athlete’s 19th birthday or full-time college enrollment. According to the NCAA, its transition approach generally did not give extra seasons to athletes whose eligibility had expired in the 2025-26 academic year. That left some athletes in the high school Class of 2022, including some who had already completed four seasons, without another year to play and prompted multiple legal challenges.

In Ohio, the issue has been playing out in state court in Borovicanin v. NCAA, filed in Hamilton County on June 24. A trial court granted preliminary relief, but the Ohio First District Court of Appeals reversed on Oct. 2. DeWine then issued his executive order on Oct. 13. A day later, on Oct. 14, the Ohio Supreme Court stayed the appeals court’s mandate and ordered supplemental briefing on the effect of the governor’s order. The NCAA’s federal suit followed on Oct. 16.

The NCAA says it sued to protect rules its member schools adopted and to prevent state-by-state carveouts that would let individual states rewrite eligibility standards for their own colleges. DeWine, by contrast, cast his order as a temporary fairness measure for athletes caught by a rule change after they had already used much of their college careers. In an Oct. 13 press release, the governor said, “When the rules change, fairness has to remain part of the equation.”