Six University of Tulsa athletes won a court fight for one more season of college competition.

A Tulsa County district judge on Thursday, Sept. 3, ruled in favor of the six TU athletes, granting them an injunction against the NCAA that allows them to use a fifth year of eligibility during the 2026-27 school year. The athletes compete across five sports: soccer, volleyball, golf, softball and football, according to the TU Collegian.

The ruling stems from the NCAA's decision earlier in 2026 to adopt a new eligibility model giving athletes who graduated high school in 2023 or later five years to play five seasons. That rule also eliminated the traditional redshirt year and most medical exemptions. Athletes from the high school class of 2022 were excluded.

Brewster & De Angelis, P.L.L.C., the law firm representing the six TU athletes, said in a press release the week of Sept. 8 that the NCAA's new rules excluded the class of 2022 without reasonable basis, leaving those athletes no choice but to go to court. The firm added that the six athletes plan to use their scholarships to finish degrees in business, sports and exercise science, nursing and speech and language pathology.

The athletes' names were not disclosed in the press release. The Tulsa World identified offensive tackle JaQuan Adams as one of the six, reporting that Adams was eligible to play in TU's season opener against Oklahoma State.

Adams and the Golden Hurricane made the most of it. TU defeated Oklahoma State 24-10 on Saturday, Sept. 5, at H.A. Chapman Stadium.

The TU ruling is part of a nationwide wave of legal challenges to the NCAA's eligibility cutoff. A Colorado federal judge initially granted a blanket waiver giving all class of 2022 athletes a fifth year, but the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals later stayed that order, according to ESPN.

Individual injunctions and temporary restraining orders obtained in state courts, like the one granted to the TU athletes, remain in effect despite the federal stay, CBS Sports reported.

The NCAA has pushed back. Vice President Tim Buckley said in a statement that courts granting relief to athletes who already had full opportunities to compete are failing to appreciate the destabilizing effect on college sports, according to OutKick.

The scope of the fight is growing. As of Aug. 31, the NCAA told its members that nearly 60 lawsuits challenging Division I eligibility rules now involve 322 former student-athletes, with 24 new cases filed in a single week.

For TU's smaller programs, the returning athletes carry outsized weight. The TU Collegian noted the women's golf team sends just five athletes to most competitions, and the volleyball team rosters 12 to 14 players in a given year.

No hearing date for a preliminary injunction in the TU athletes' case has been publicly announced.