Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs order letting 2022 college athletes get a 5th year of eligibility

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed an executive order that lets colleges and universities in Ohio choose to grant student-athletes from the class of 2022 a fifth year of NCAA eligibility. The move, described in a thestar.com report, is presented by the governor as an attempt to preserve fairness for athletes after changes to eligibility rules and to match opportunities already available in other states. DeWine is identified in the article as a Republican and is quoted as saying, "When the rules change, fairness has to remain part of the equation."

The thestar.com excerpt also notes a reaction from the NCAA membership: the governing body's president, Charlie Baker, told member schools in a letter that DeWine "cannot legislate NCAA eligibility rules," a point the article connects to legal limits on state action over collegiate eligibility. The piece further cites a comment from U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Kelly about the complexity of defining a market in an antitrust case, observing wide differences in earning power among college sports. The article frames the executive order as optional for institutions; it permits Ohio colleges and universities to adopt the extra year of eligibility but does not mandate that they must do so. That distinction — state-level permission versus a universal rule applying to all Ohio schools — is central to how the order will affect student-athletes depending on decisions by individual institutions. Multiple headlines from other outlets corroborate that DeWine signed an order with the same immediate effect. WKBN, AP News, On3 and Yahoo Sports each ran headlines stating that the governor signed an order allowing state colleges to permit 2022 athletes a fifth year of eligibility, but the thestar.com text is the sole full article provided here and supplies the governor's quoted rationale and the cited pushback from the NCAA president. The article places the order in the narrow frame of eligibility policy and law: it records both the state's effort to extend an opportunity to affected athletes and the NCAA's assertion about the limits of state power over eligibility rules. Absent further reporting in the supplied text, the actual choices individual Ohio colleges will make under the order and any legal challenges that might follow are not documented in this article. For current and former student-athletes from the class of 2022 and for athletic departments at Ohio institutions, the order creates an immediate option to seek another year of collegiate competition, subject to each school's decision and the NCAA's regulatory framework as described by the article.