Eligibility chaos forces Texas Tech reserve QB to catch a late flight to Colo after court ruling

BOULDER, Colo. — Texas Tech reserve quarterback Lloyd Jones III had to catch a late flight to Colorado after the school received last-minute word of a decision in a lawsuit that made backup Tommy Castellanos ineligible for Saturday night's game against the Buffaloes.

Jones arrived Friday night — a few hours after the rest of the 12th-ranked Red Raiders. He was listed as the new third-string quarterback, behind Kirk Francis, who took Castellanos' spot as the backup. Texas Tech won 29-7. Francis came into the game once — for the last snap.

The last-minute court decision that led to Jones' rush to the airport is the latest bit of chaos to come out of a raft of lawsuits players have filed challenging a new NCAA eligibility rule that gives most athletes five years to play five seasons. That rule did not include those who graduated high school in 2022 and exhausted their fourth year of eligibility in the 2025-26 school year.

Tech coach Joey McGuire said Castellanos' absence, combined with an early injury to running back Cam Dickey — who came into the week as the team's leading rusher — removed a handful of short-yardage plays the Red Raiders like to call out of the wildcat formation from the game plan.

"Let's say we had ... five trick plays, you're taking out four of the five," McGuire said.

Castellanos, who threw for 2,760 yards and ran for 557 at Florida State last season and was playing his fifth year in Lubbock, was part of a lawsuit filed in Kentucky, in which an appeals court overturned a lower court's temporary injunction that had allowed him to play for the Red Raiders.

He had played briefly in three games this season, but was in street clothes Saturday. A hearing in the case is set for Oct. 9.

"The fact that something like that would happen on a Friday, and then he may eligible again next week, it's just insanity," Texas Tech regent chair Cody Campbell told The Associated Press before the game. "It's why I feel so strongly" about a bill recently passed in the Senate that would, in the future, prevent many of the lawsuits against the NCAA currently teeming through the courts.

Castellanos was one of 38 players across the country involved in the Kentucky lawsuit, including basketball players Seth Trimble, who last played for North Carolina, and Mark Mitchell, who last played for Missouri.

Also late Friday, an Arizona judge essentially overturned an order from last month, which made Wildcats running back Ismail Mahdi and linebacker Max Harris ineligible for their game against Cincinnati.

The NCAA also received a favorable ruling from an appeals court in Ohio in a case involving Filip Borovicanin and two dozen other basketball players that had originally marked its first high-profile loss over the rule.

In reversing the lower court's preliminary injunction in the Ohio case, appeals Judge Candace C. Crouse wrote that the court understood the players' frustration but was "mindful that at the time the plaintiffs began their collegiate athletic careers, they understood that they were entitled to four years of athletic eligibility within a five-year period."

The NCAA sent a memo to its members notifying them of the decisions.

"In reversing the injunction, the court recognized the importance of consistent application of NCAA eligibility rules and the harms caused by conflicting judicial decisions," the memo said.

The next big hearing for the NCAA comes Oct. 13 in a federal case in Denver filed by basketball player Brock Wisne against the NCAA. A judge in that case issued a preliminary injunction that covered athletes across the country. That, however, was overturned on appeal, which left cases to be decided in numerous state courts.

___

AP Sports Writer John Marshall in Tucson, Arizona, contributed to this report.

___

Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP's full college football coverage here

Related topics