Thirty-eight current and former Penn State athletes were among those who lost their fifth-year eligibility opportunity by a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling on Friday morning.

The ruling granted the NCAA’s request for a stay on a prior ruling that granted a classwide injunction for the high school Class of 2022.

BREAKING: The Tenth Circuit has GRANTED the NCAA’s stay request in Wisne v. NCAA.

Judge Sweeney’s nationwide injunction is now stayed pending appeal, meaning qualifying Class of 2022 athletes lose its federal fifth-season protection for now. pic.twitter.com/i3ASE2TmHi

— Austin Massey (@austinmasseySBI) August 21, 2026

On July 31, a landmark ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado granted all athletes who exhausted their four years of eligibility without the use of a redshirt a blanket waiver to participate in the 2026-27 athletic season in their respective sports.

These athletes, all of whom graduated high school in the Class of 2022, have been suing the NCAA across the country since June’s massive rule change that eliminated the concept of a redshirt and granted all active and incoming athletes a fifth year of competition.

When this was initially ruled three weeks ago, we uncovered a list of 38 Nittany Lions across 12 sports who now had the opportunity to return for a fifth year. However, a clarification from Sweeney a few days later stated that teams were not allowed to exceed roster limits to add these players, prompting many teams across college athletics to avoid this avenue.

The two most prominent Nittany Lion athletes affected by this specific ruling are wrestler Levi Haines and basketball player Josh Reed, both of whom were either confirmed or strongly implied to be willing to take advantage of it.

Reed initially gained a fifth year of eligibility in a separate Ohio ruling on July 9 that was specifically meant for 24 men’s and women’s basketball athletes, in which he was included.

After the men’s basketball team announced his return earlier this month, the NCAA was granted a stay on the Ohio ruling on Monday, but Reed was temporarily protected by the blanket waiver until today.

For Haines, it was strongly implied from a Cael Sanderson interview that the team was interested in bringing the two-time national champion back, especially considering he’s stayed in Happy Valley with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club (NLWC) for his freestyle endeavors.

“Well, obviously, we’d love to have Levi back another year, so I’m gonna lean into that. Like, yeah, let’s go,” Sanderson told FloWrestling earlier this month after the initial ruling.

“It’s just tough to penalize somebody. You know, you’re making a rule change. You know, midstream in kids’ careers. So I think that’s tough to do, and it’s hard to tell somebody or even kids on our team this year, that redshirted when, if they would have known this the rule change, well then they would have wrestled and we would have said, okay, let’s go, you know, best guy wrestles kind of thing. So, you feel bad for those kinds of things.”

There is still an opportunity for Haines, Reed, and the three dozen others to get on the field for next season, but it’d require more litigation.

There will undoubtedly be an appeal process from the Tenth Circuit Court’s ruling, counter-lawsuits, and separate state-level lawsuits that have granted dozens of athletes across the country eligibility that has yet to be rescinded, most notably with the 16 players who’ve gone through the NFL Draft process and are currently signed to NFL preseason rosters in Louisiana.