Kyla Deck and the NCAA’s Rulemaking Crisis

Written By Todd Graff

OPENING STATEMENT

You really have to wonder what the NCAA’s long term plan is - other than betting on a longshot that Congress will magically solve everything.

The latest comes from Kyla Deck, the former SMU basketball player whose court filing this week may have a seismic impact on college athletics and further suggests that the NCAA may not be able to manage the evolution it is entrusted to oversee.

Deck sued the NCAA and SMU in federal court, arguing that NCAA transfer-portal deadlines unlawfully prevented her from finding a new team after she became eligible for an additional season. She originally was seeking an additional year of eligibility due to a previous injury, and didn’t enter the portal because she intended to stay at SMU.

The July 31 injunction in Wisne v. NCAA made her, along with thousands of similarly situated Division I athletes, eligible for a fifth season. By then, the portal window had closed. The NCAA's own “ghost transfer” rule, which was instituted to stop schools from sneaking in players outside the portal, left her with no legal way to play anywhere.

And once again, the NCAA may be caught in the trap of its own building. Tightened the transfer window. Layered on harsh penalties for “ghost transfers” (50% coaching suspension, a 20% budget fine). Left zero room for edge cases like Deck's. If she wins in federal court, it just may establish lasting precedent that makes athletes free agents at any point.

Bigger picture, it represents another example of the NCAA choosing to fight every, single, battle. Without apparent understanding about which are worth it and which are not. As a result, too often boxing itself in.

Which is less a lawsuit problem than a leadership problem that seems to reflect the NCAA’s new operating model: 1) Lose in court, 2) Write a narrower rule to comply, 3) Get sued based on the narrower rule creates a new lawsuit, 4) Rinse and repeat.

Five years ago, Alston killed the idea that amateurism is a legal shield with Justice Kavanaugh indelibly conveying that no other industry in America gets to agree not to pay workers fairly and call it a “product feature.” But the NCAA seems to keep building rules - without understanding consequences.

Consider just a few other unforced errors:

  1. Roster limits. The $2.8 billion House settlement capped rosters without protecting athletes already on them. A federal judge called it out. Lead plaintiff Grant House got death threats over cuts nobody modeled in advance. The NCAA had to retrofit a fix mid-settlement.

  2. JUCO eligibility. The NCAA's rule counted junior-college seasons against a player's four-year eligibility clock. Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia sued the NCAA, arguing its JUCO rules illegally restrained the labor market. He won a preliminary injunction. Rather than fix the rule, the NCAA appealed, then simultaneously granted a blanket waiver for every JUCO athlete in his position, which mooted its own appeal and invited more bleeding.

  3. The NIL clearinghouse. Built to police NIL deals after House. Now it's the defendant. Two Power 4 football players sued in June, calling it price-fixing across 17 states' NIL laws. The fix itself became a new antitrust target because it collided with existing state law and imposed a centralized valuation system on a market the NCAA doesn't actually control.

  4. The NIL recruiting inducement ban. The rule barred pre-enrollment NIL talks. The NCAA probed Tennessee over QB Nico Iamaleava's deal. Tennessee and Virginia sued, calling it an illegal restraint. A judge enjoined it nationwide within weeks; the NCAA settled in 2025 just to keep the rule from being formally struck down as unconstitutional under antitrust law.

The Olympics figured this out decades ago. By 1988, the IOC gave up mandatory amateurism. Not because of a moral revelation, because it was economically incoherent and impossible to enforce against reality. The NCAA is having that same reckoning now, in real time, in federal court, one case at a time. Except it still hasn't admitted it.

Nothing is settled, and the courts may side with the NCAA and SMU. But if Decker wins, blowing up the entire transfer portal system, it will further signal that the NCAA as a rulemaking body may be without authority.

Unfortunately, more than a half-million college athletes pass through NCAA-governed programs every year. Their eligibility, their income, their health, their futures all run through an organization that keeps getting overruled by its own rulebook.

EXHIBIT A

How much power do conferences have over eligibility claims? We’re about to find out, and it may have telling consequences. Villanova quarterback Pat McQuaide won a preliminary injunction earlier this month for another year of eligibility. But the Patriot League, which was not a party to that lawsuit, independently denied his conference waiver, citing the same "four seasons within five years" rationale the court already rejected, and reportedly told Villanova his games could be forfeited if he plays. A conference denying eligibility despite a court injunction is a novel scenario. It's a test of whether conferences can override a court, not just the NCAA, and it could set a precedent limiting how much independent authority conferences retain when a member school's athlete has already secured federal or state court relief against the NCAA itself.

EXHIBIT B

I can’t emphasize enough for athletes: Keep. All. Communication. Especially when it pertains to NIL agreements. Performance-based bonuses tied to NIL deals may not be legal. But we’re certainly aware of programs promising incentives at the start of a season. And, unfortunately, to renege once the games are played and leverage shifts. As fall season begin, athletes can’t afford to rely on memory or trust. Every conversation, text, email, voicemail, DM  should be documented and saved. If a coach or collective won't commit terms to writing, that's the loudest warning sign of all. Retained records are often the only thing standing between an athlete and a broken promise.

ON THE DOCKET

Next weekend may be the start of college football. But I’m focused on Sunday afternoon. Aug. 30 is when NFL rosters must be trimmed to 53 players, and there may be an enormous ripple effect across college football. A Louisiana federal court granted a temporary restraining order allowing 33 athletes, including four currently on NFL rosters, to seek a fifth year of college eligibility. Players like Seahawks RB Anthony Hankerson, Bucs pass rusher Jack Pyburn, Browns TE Dae'Quan Wright and Cardinals DB Wydett Williams could be cut and pivot back to college football if the NCAA's appeal fails. 

FOOTNOTES

“Revenue sharing was going to ‘fix everything.’ We had a great system, and some people chose not to play by the rules. ... If this does pass, we’ll ‘have a great system,' and some people will choose not to play by the rules.”

Todd Graff
Next

When Reform Leaves Athletes With Nowhere to Turn