Trump EO would do a lot for college sports, but for how long? | Goodbread

As fall camps crank up all over college football this August, NCAA attorneys will be doing the same.

Just as pads start popping and anticipation begins building for opening matchups like Clemson-LSU and Notre Dame-Wisconsin, the matchup that will matter more will come between President Donald Trump's recent executive order regulating college sports and the lawsuits that will challenge it.

The EO takes effect on Aug. 1, and calls for the NCAA to revamp its rulebook in accordance by then. That gives the NCAA a little less than four months to convene the necessary committees, craft new legislation, and cross its fingers for a favorable judge when the tsunami of injunction requests follows. 

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The most impactful change of all would bring back the old NCAA rule mandating a one-year sit-out for transfers, with an exception for an athlete's first transfer, which would come with immediate eligibility. It also regulates NIL compensation, the participation window (five years), and protects scholarships in Olympic and women's sports. All that reform has merit. All of it makes sense. Until Aug. 1, however, the transfer-whenever freedom athletes have enjoyed in recent years will remain in place.

NCAA President Charlie Baker, of course, went to the Final Four in Indianapolis on Friday and used the platform to say a lot of gobbledygook in support of it. No surprise, all four power conference commissioners fell in line, too. Why wouldn't they? The EO was drafted more or less on their behalf, but its shelf life could be short.

Lawyers will be lined up to get their name on a lawsuit that shoots a hole in Trump's EO, and the judicial system might even draw the bullseye for them. Federal judges have seen fit to block Trump from just about anything but brushing his teeth, sometimes on grounds so weak they've been overturned by a higher court faster than you can say transfer portal.

The challenges will most likely attack the part of the EO that seeks to invalidate state laws that provide competitive advantages to their schools. To varying degrees, that's almost all of them.

The EO's punitive element for non-compliance — the withholding of federal funds — is one of Trump's favorites. Which begs the question: what's the punitive action against private schools? Can Duke basketball go rogue without being held accountable? Could Vanderbilt … never mind, Vandy wouldn't, because Vandy's Vandy. But there are too many private schools for public schools to be the only ones facing legitimate enforcement. That, however, will be the last issue that gets dragged into court. The fire will come from the players, and it'll burn hot.

And of course, an EO is good only for as long as its author is in the White House. If there's a party change at the top in 2028, there's no reason to expect this or any other Trump executive order to survive.

And not much of one to expect it to survive more than few months.

Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Donald Trump EO would do a lot for college sports, but for how long?