Recently, the Indiana football program won the 2025 national championship, bringing to an end a historic undefeated season and also marking the third straight year that the SEC did not attain championship glory. The last team from the conference to win a championship was the Georgia Bulldogs in 2022-23, and no SEC team has even appeared in a championship game since that season.
One of the major talking points on the heels of Indiana's victory was the fact that the Hoosiers had one of the oldest rosters in college football, raising a debate on eligibility rules and whether players should still be able to play college football into their mid-20s.
Recently, Chris Low of On3 Sports reported that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey “wants common-sense standards to limit 26–27-year-old college athletes with 7–9 years of eligibility,” per On3 Sports on X, formerly Twitter.
“It is a temporary period of time for a college student to be a college athlete, not a career athletic situation,” said Sankey.
This debate was further fueled when Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who will be 24 by the time next season starts, was granted eligibility by a court to return to the Rebels, as opposed to taking his talents to the NFL.
Stetson Bennett, meanwhile, was 25 years old when he won his second national championship at Georgia, which also ignited a stir at the time.
At this point, it remains unclear what the exact standards of the “common sense” rules regarding eligibility would be. The COVID-19 pandemic played a major role in granting an extra year of eligibility to many student athletes, and the ripple effects are still being felt today.
The 2026 season is set to get underway in September.
