Colorado defensive lineman Ezra Christensen just lost round one in court, but not the fight. A judge denied his ex parte request for a temporary restraining order against the NCAA, which means the association now gets a chance to respond before things get serious at a preliminary injunction hearing that will actually decide whether he plays for the Buffs this season.
College football insider Pete Nakos broke the ruling as it came down from court documents.
Colorado DL Ezra Christensen's ex parte TRO has been denied, per court docs, allowing the NCAA to respond. A hearing is being scheduled in the near future for his preliminary injunction request. https://t.co/jIItjK9tVV
For anyone unfamiliar with the backstory, Christensen's path here is a wild one. He started his career at San Diego Mesa junior college in 2022, spent two years at Fresno State, then had a breakout 2025 season at New Mexico State, racking up 11 tackles for loss and 6 sacks on his way to a First Team All-CUSA nod. When he transferred to Colorado this offseason, he needed the NCAA to sign off on a waiver for a fifth year of eligibility, something that leaned on precedent tied to his junior college days. The NCAA denied it after adopting a new age-based, five-year eligibility rule, and according to his attorney Darren Heitner, Christensen never fully understood he'd started an eligibility clock as a teenager who grew up in an orphanage in Sierra Leone before being adopted at 16 with zero background in American football or NCAA red tape.
That's the context that makes the TRO denial sting less than it might otherwise. Losing an ex parte request, the kind filed without the other side even showing up yet, isn't the same as losing the case. It's a procedural first step, and Nakos was quick to point out why nobody in Boulder should be panicking.
Nakos followed up to put the ruling in perspective for anxious Buffs fans.
This is standard, and many judges have ruled for players after denying an ex parte TRO.
That framing matters because judges have sided with athletes in these eligibility fights before, even after initially declining to grant emergency relief without hearing the NCAA out. Denying an ex parte TRO just means due process runs its normal course: the NCAA gets to respond, then both sides argue the preliminary injunction, which is the real ballgame here.
The clock, though, is not exactly Christensen's friend. Colorado opens its season against Georgia Tech in a matter of weeks, and every day this drags through the courts is a day closer to Deion Sanders having to plan a defensive line rotation without knowing if one of his best pass rushers is even allowed to suit up. A hearing on the preliminary injunction is reportedly being scheduled soon, and that's the date that actually decides whether Christensen's fifth year happens in Boulder.
This case is also bigger than one defensive lineman. The NCAA has been getting dragged into court by players challenging its eligibility rules with increasing frequency, and every ruling either way sets a marker for the next guy with a similarly messy transfer résumé. Christensen's story, JUCO stop, multiple transfers, a genuinely sympathetic personal background, is about as strong a test case as the NCAA is going to face. How a judge threads that needle in the coming weeks could ripple well past Colorado's depth chart.