Can Paco Austin or Chris Bell Return to Cal This Season After Ruling?

Can former standout Cal cornerback Brent “Paco” Austin return for another football season at Cal in 2026?

Is there enough time for Cal to accommodate them if they want to come back?

Would Chris Bell be able to come back to Cal for another season of college basketball?

These are questions that suddenly came up on Friday after Judge Charlotte Sweeney of the U.S. District Court of Colorado granted a preliminary injunction that required the NCAA to grant eligibility to athletes from the high school class of 2022 despite being considered ineligible before the ruling.

Players who had used up their four years of college eligibility this past spring thought their college careers were over, because the new NCAA rule that grants athletes five years of eligibility over a five-year period did not apply to them.

They were basically a casualty of the new rule, victimized by being in the transition year.

However, the injunction says those players have another year of eligibility if they have only been on college rosters for four seasons.

So can players in that category who have signed pro contracts return for the 2026-2027 college season? AL.com suggests they can, adding questions and confusion to the impact of the injunction ruling.

Cal cornerbacks Austin and Hezekiah Masses were on college rosters for four years apiece, so they apparently would be eligible for another season at Cal based on years of service. However, ESPN’s report seems to suggest that players taken in the NFL draft are not eligible for another college year, but undrafted players who signed free agent contracts are.

Masses was drafted in the fifth round by the Raiders, so presumably he would not be eligible. He is likely to make the Raiders’ regular-season roster, so he would not be interested in returning to Cal anyway.

But Austin went undrafted and signed a free agent contract with Denver. He might not make the Broncos’ roster, so he might want to come back to Cal for 2026 to improve his game and raise his NFL stock. Cal could certainly use a talented cornerback like Austin.

Wide receiver Jacob De Jesus and defensive linemen Aidan Keanaaina and TJ Bollers, who signed free agent NFL contracts, would not be eligible to return because each has been on college rosters for at least five seasons.

Cal’s preseason practices begin in a week, so could the Golden Bears accommodate any of those newly eligible players on their rosters at this point, given the roster limits and the logistics of adding players?

Presumably the logistics for basketball might be easier, and Chris Bell and DJ Campbell would seem to be eligible to return under the judge’s ruling. Bell did not get drafted and signed an Exhibit 10 free-agent deal with the New Orleans Pelicans and played in the NBA summer league. But he is unlikely to make an NBA roster, so a return to college ball might make sense for him and Cal.

Campbell, who started 17 games in his two seasons at Cal, could come back since he did not use any redshirt seasons.

John Camden redshirted his freshman season at Virginia Tech, so he would not be eligible for another college season.

Sakima Walker was the only player on Cal’s women’s basketball team who ran out of eligibility after the 2025-2026 season, and she would not be eligible to return because she was on a college roster in 2020-2021.

Friday's ruling would also apply to other NCAA sports, such as baseball, softball, volleyball and gymnastics, and could dramatically affect Cal's roster in those sports.

This is a chaotic situation at the moment, with more guidelines likely to be introduced in the coming days. At the moment, it's difficult to determine exactly which athletes would be eligible to return.

The immediate focus is whether some key football players across the country will take advantage of this ruling and whether their schools would want them back.

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