A Louisiana judge delivered the latest player-eligibility wrinkle ahead of the 2026-27 college sports season Wednesday afternoon, granting a temporary restraining order to a group of college athletes seeking a fifth season of eligibility, including 16 football players.

UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley took to social media Thursday to join a chorus of criticism over the Louisiana ruling and the wider chaos surrounding the eligibility of players in the 2022 high school class for the upcoming season. 

“And now it’s hitting college football,” Hurley wrote on X. “Unreal mess…Their season starts in a couple of weeks.”

The group of football players granted eligibility includes several NFL training camp participants, and the TRO also ordered the NCAA to open the transfer portal “for one week from entry of this order.” An injunction hearing date has been set for Aug. 31.

A similar wave of fifth-year transfer portal entrants hit college basketball earlier this month, stemming from a ruling by U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado granting a fifth season to Division I athletes who began competing in 2022-23 and exhausted four seasons of eligibility by the end of 2025-26.

Hurley’s program was reportedly linked with Villanova transfer Duke Brennan after the center entered the transfer portal this month, but Hurley later clarified to reporters that his roster for the upcoming season is set. 

“The art of what we do has been cheapened a little bit,” Hurley said. “You can put together teams that can compete and not have to identify and develop young talent. Now, you can screw up high school and portal recruiting, not have a very good team, and now start plucking from a group of players in August and put together a team. Now, let’s unleash 80 players into the sport in the first week of August. We can’t go on like this. And anyone who acts like it’s great, it’s good for college basketball, they’ve already taken the stance that this is what they’ve wanted, and now they’re just defending their position. It’s total chaos and it’s not sustainable.”