Steve Sarkisian reacts to former Texas OL Cole Hutson eligibility lawsuit: ‘We’ll see where it goes’

Former Texas offensive lineman Cole Hutson filed an eligibility lawsuit Friday against the NCAA in Travis County (Texas) court seeking to take advantage of the NCAA’s new age-based eligibility format. Hutson, who played his fourth season with the Longhorns in 2025, is the latest among a growing number of student-athletes that previously exhausted their collegiate eligibility to request temporary injunctions against the NCAA enforcing its now-outdated eligibility standard. Hutson, who played both center and guard at Texas, appeared in 48 games with 23 starts during his four-year career with the Longhorns. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian addressed Hutson’s lawsuit and said the team was monitoring it while speaking with reporters during a Sunday afternoon appearance at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention in Houston. Hutson went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft in April but earned a rookie minicamp invite with his home state Dallas Cowboys. “I think with Cole’s situation, obviously we’re monitoring it, and I don’t know where it’s going to go. You know, I think we’ve all seen over the past few years there’s been a lot of lawsuits that have been filed and piggybacking off of other lawsuits, so on and so forth,” Sarkisian said Sunday, according to Inside Texas‘ Evan Vieth. “And you know, Cole’s a guy with a lot of experience playing a lot of football for us, and he’s a guy that unfortunately didn’t get drafted, and so he puts himself in a bit of a different situation than maybe most guys that got done playing their fourth year in college. So we’ll see what that looks like and see where it goes.” The NCAA’s newly implemented age-based model — otherwise known as the new “five-in-five” rule — begins an athlete’s eligibility clock upon initial full-time enrollment in college or at the beginning of the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs earlier. The age-based implementation officially began this summer with 2027 recruits to be the first class to completely fall under the new format. Previously, NCAA athletes were allowed five years to play four seasons of collegiate eligibility with the potential for redshirt seasons. Under the new age-based model, there are no more redshirt seasons. An Ohio judge granted a preliminary injunction for 24 men’s and women’s college basketball players suing the NCAA for eligibility on the age-based eligibility model last week. The win has spurred another set of lawsuits against the NCAA, with the latest now coming from Hutson. — On3’s Pete Nakos contributed to this report.