BYU OK with NCAA rule limiting athletes to 5 years — as long as missionary exemption still applies

BYU players run during a spring practice on Monday, March 2, 2026. | Aaron Cornia/BYU Photo The NCAA is on the verge of making significant and generational changes to the way its Division I schools, including all six in the state of Utah, deal with the eligibility of their student-athletes. The age-based eligibility model, as the NCAA prefers to call it, would give athletes five full years to compete in Division I, starting immediately after their high school graduation or 19th birthday, whichever comes first.

The next vote on the matter is scheduled for Friday, and most experts agree that the proposals will be implemented soon, but would not apply retroactively to any student-athletes who have completed their eligibility under current NCAA rules (four seasons of competition in five years) by spring of 2026. Certainly, the missionary program is of utmost importance to us — men and women, across the board. It is a priority.

And so certainly having an exemption for missions is one of the exemptions that is super important to us. BYU athletic director Brian Santiago “If you’ve used up your eligibility, you’ve used it up,” NCAA President Charlie Baker told ESPN’s Pete Thamel on April 27 when the NCAA’s Division I board of directors directed the Division I cabinet to keep the proposal alive for the vote this Friday. It has commonly been called the “five-for-five rule,” but the NCAA has said that the age-based model is separate and distinct from the five seasons in five years concept that took root last summer because that terminology incorrectly implies that all student-athletes will be guaranteed five years of NCAA eligibility.

That is not necessarily true for all prospects. Obviously, the proposal has garnered heavy interest in Utah and among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith that is known for sending young men on two-year missions and young women on 18-month missions. That missionary service is often performed before, or during, the missionary’s college years, and previously student-athletes who serve missions have received an exemption from the NCAA so those years don’t count against their eligibility, and the five-year “clock” on their eligibility doesn’t run while they are serving.