Northwestern center Jackson Carsello will be able to suit up for college football in 2026, thanks to a court injunction handed down Monday by a Cook County, Illinois judge.
The NCAA had denied Carsello’s request for a waiver that would have granted him a sixth year of eligibility. The organization’s position was that Carsello should have used his redshirt year back in 2021. During that season, he practiced but never appeared in a game due to an ankle injury. Carsello, however, considered 2022 his redshirt year — a season in which he appeared in four games.
Over the past three seasons, Carsello played in 32 games total, including 13 starts in 2025.
Cook County Circuit Judge Neil Cohen ruled in Carsello’s favor, pointing out that the injury was beyond the player’s control.
“Mr. Carsello didn’t impose a high-ankle sprain on himself in order to dodge the rules of the NCAA,” Cohen stated in his ruling. “… You have his own coach saying, ‘I wouldn’t put him in, he was damaged, it would be unhealthy, it would be a violation,’ — my terms, not his — ‘of the whole purpose of the NCAA, which is to guarantee the safety and health of a student-athlete.’”
The judge also had pointed words for the NCAA, though he stopped short of accusing the organization of acting in bad faith.
“I admire the NCAA, and I thank them for the process they went through, but they got it wrong in this case. I imply no bad faith in their getting it wrong, but they got it really wrong,” Cohen said.
Carsello joins a growing list of college football players who have turned to the courts to secure their eligibility. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and Oklahoma linebacker Owen Heinecke have also received similar injunctions ahead of the upcoming season.
Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby received an injunction as well following an NCAA suspension tied to gambling on his own team and other college football programs, though he has since pursued entry into the NFL’s supplemental draft — a route that had also been available to Carsello if the court had not ruled in his favor.
