Welcome back everyone to the Hike’s Peak Podcast, thank you for coming back to the mountain! It’s a bit of a different episode this week, as the college sports landscape was just shaken up again with a major change to eligibility rules, colloquially known as the “5 for 5” rule, giving hundreds of 5th years across the country one final year. We’re going to talk about what that means, what Mountain West and PAC-12 players can now play because of it, as well as a whole lot of my thoughts on how this ruling will go on to shape the 2026 season, with some positives and a bunch of negatives. I’ve got a lot to say this week, so let’s dive in!

Note: If you haven’t heard already, the Mountain West and PAC-12 have officially settled their litigation and the divorce is now finally over. We’ll dive into all of the information about that next week, I ...