ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks is worried that in a few weeks college football coaches and players will make an important decision with incomplete information: the status of the NCAA’s redshirt rule.

Right now, football players who appear in a fifth game lose one of their four seasons of eligibility. Those who appear in four games or fewer can use their one redshirt season. But a lawsuit filed earlier this week is asking the NCAA to get rid of the redshirt rule and allow football players to appear in five full seasons over five years in school.

The concept has been bandied about by coaches and administrators, but no official action has been taken. Now that the lawsuit has been filed, Brooks is hoping the NCAA issues guidance in the next few weeks, before teams and players have to start making those redshirt decisions. Making a permanent decision on the rule probably isn’t possible that quickly, but Brooks hopes the NCAA can say whether a retroactive decision that includes the 2025 season is “on the table.”

“My ask right now is just give us clarity that it’s going to be an agenda item or not, because if it really is taken off the table, then we can at least tell those individuals that there won’t be (a rule change for this year),” Brooks said Friday. “But the unknown creates the fear and the rumors, and that’s where, if we knew it was or was not on table, we could at least address that. Because right now, we don’t even know if it’s going to be on the table.”

Earlier this week, 10 current and former college athletes filed a class-action lawsuit over the redshirt rule, arguing that allowing athletes only four seasons of participation was an unfair limit on their ability to earn money while in college. The lawsuit doesn’t ask for eligibility rules to be completely thrown out, only that the redshirt rule be thrown out and players be allowed to play a full five seasons.

Vanderbilt linebacker Langston Patterson and defensive lineman Issa Ouattara were among the plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Nashville.

After years of losing lawsuits, the NCAA has been on a better run with eligibility lawsuits, including one earlier this year in which Tennessee basketball player Zakai Zeigler sought a fifth year. In that case, Zeigler had played what amounted to four full seasons, never fewer than 30 games in each.

The case filed Tuesday is purely about the redshirt rule. But it would have allowed someone like Zeigler to play a fifth full year. Coaches have spoken out in favor of it. Brooks and his boss, Georgia president Jere Morehead, also appeared open to it, but their focus was more on the timing of a decision.

“We’ve got to have clarity on that, because across the country there’ll be a ton of programs with individuals who are playing four games,” Brooks said.

CFP and NCAA Tournament expansion

Morehead is one of the SEC’s longest-tenured presidents and has long been active in athletics. He also defers to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey on decisions. But when it comes to expansion of the postseason – not only in football but men’s basketball – the Georgia president is personally wary.

In football, Morehead is fine with expanding to 16 teams, which has been the SEC’s preference in the ongoing format discussions among the Football Bowl subdivision conference commissioners and Notre Dame. But he sounded skeptical on the Big Ten’s proposals to expand it beyond that, to 24 or 28.

“I don’t want the Playoff to get too large, to where it doesn’t matter about the regular season,” Morehead said. “I think it’s important now that these are all big games when we play some of the opponents on our schedule,” Morehead said. “But I don’t have any really strong opinions about going from 12 to 16. I don’t think that’s going to fundamentally change anything.”

In basketball, the NCAA Tournament is remaining at 68 for now, with many administrators and coaches pushing for it to go well beyond that. Morehead, however, likes it where it is.

“Sixty-eight’s a lot of teams. I think it’s worked great,” he said. “Now is it going to change the world if it goes to 72, probably not. So I don’t have a strong opinion on it.”

Nine-game SEC schedule impact

Brooks said he’s already had discussions with some of Georgia’s future nonconference opponents in the two weeks since the SEC announced it was going to nine games. Georgia now has 11 power-conference games scheduled for 2026: the annual Georgia Tech rivalry plus the start of a home-and-home with Louisville. Asked if the Bulldogs will play those 11 games, next year and in future years, Brooks indicated the school will approach the schedule on a year-by-year basis, indicating the amount of home games each year will matter most.

“We’re working through that right now, and lot of that’s going to be determined as we learn when and where our schedule is going to be,” Brooks said. We’ve had some initial conversations (with future nonconference opponents) and we’re seeing what’s possible right now.”

(Photo: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)