EMU’s Noah Kim embracing ‘unc status,’ thinking ‘every day’ about Spartan Stadium return in 7th season
Kim is back for a seventh year of college football, yet his first shot to return to a team as a starting quarterback, hoping for big things with the Eagles in 2026.
Ypsilanti — At this point, Noah Kim welcomes the jokes.
“At the end of the day there's some truth in it,” Kim said. “Like, you are old. And that's just kind of what it is. I don't think it'll ever annoy me because I pretty much have it coming. It's your seventh year of college, you deserve to get joked on a little bit. No hard feelings at all and, I mean, you've gotta embrace it.”
Sitting on a large leather sofa in the Incarnati Athletic Center on a cold afternoon in late January, Kim is here by virtue of an approved NCAA eligibility waiver that granted him a seventh year of college football, basically providing a retroactive medical redshirt from his time at Michigan State. He also benefits from his 2020 season not counting towards his eligibility clock, due to the Covid pandemic. He’s part of a growing number of college football players who have extended their careers beyond the usual five years, a result of Covid and, more recently, challenges to the NCAA’s eligibility rules (though Kim’s case doesn’t really fall in that bucket.)
And it all means Kim, who turned 24 in December, is set to return as the quarterback for Eastern Michigan in 2026, the first time in his college career he’ll get to be a starting quarterback in back-to-back seasons. It’s the first time EMU has returned a starting quarterback since 2017. And entering what will now be his final year of college football, Kim has no shortage of opportunity: To improve on being the MAC’s leading passer in 2025, to play at Spartan Stadium one last time, something Kim said he's thought about regularly, and to lead the Eagles back to a bowl game for the first time since 2023.
