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Texas Tech had to book a special flight to Colorado for reserve quarterback Lloyd Jones III after receiving late word of a decision in an eligibility lawsuit that made backup Thomas Castellanos ineligible Tech'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, 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.
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, 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. 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. ”“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.
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