The Only Two Rules
Fans of the iconic comic strip Calvin & Hobbes remember Calvinball, the favorite game of Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes. Bill Watterson’s strip ran from 1985 to 1995, and somewhere in there the two of them invented the only sport that makes perfect sense and no sense at all.
The premise: there are no fixed rules. Players wear masks. You make up the rules as you go—declaring new scoring zones, mandatory songs, and penalties on the fly, usually to your own advantage—and the scores come back as things like “Q to 12.” The only two rules that actually hold are the ones every Calvin & Hobbes fan can recite: first, the game can never be played the same way twice; second, there are no rules. It’s chaos with a rulebook that rewrites itself every time someone touches the ball.
How College Sports Went Full Calvinball
Over the last two weeks or so, the NCAA and college sports have gone exactly where we figured they might back in the fall, when we launched our college sports practice: full Calvinball. Here’s how.
Eligibility Has Stopped Meaning Anything
Start with eligibility, where the idea of a fixed number of years has quietly stopped meaning much of anything.
James Nnaji, a 2023 draft pick of the Detroit Pistons out of perennial Euroleague contender Barcelona, was granted permission to join Baylor’s basketball team effective immediately. A player drafted by an NBA franchise, with professional seasons in Europe behind him, is now suiting up in college.
Carson Beck, in his seventh year of eligibility, led the University of Miami Hurricanes to a last-minute win over Ole Miss in the national semifinals. Hours before the national championship game—won by Indiana—Beck told the media he had graduated from Georgia two years earlier and had not taken a single class since, at Georgia or at Miami.
The NCAA denied Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss’s star quarterback, his request for a sixth year of eligibility. The school initiated legal action, and Chambliss was granted an injunction allowing him to participate in team activities while the case continues.
Charles Bediako, a 2023 draft pick of the San Antonio Spurs and a 2025–26 G-League player for the Pistons, was granted an injunction by an Alabama judge allowing him to return to the University of Alabama with immediate eligibility. One week after his last G-League game, he scored 13 points in 25 minutes during the No. 17 Crimson Tide’s 79–73 loss to Tennessee.
Clemson wide receiver Tristan Smith is suing the NCAA and seeking an injunction after he was turned down for a fifth year; 2025 was his first season at Clemson, after he worked his way up through three years of JUCO.