Remember the Pitt-Syracuse football game this past year? The one where Kenny Pickett had his redshirt blown for one play because Ben DiNucci couldn’t keep his helmet on? Lots of frustration at that point since there was no indication that Pickett was going to get much of a chance to play that season. Obviously that changed with the Miami game. One of the expected changes to the redshirting rule would have let Pickett stay redshirted.
If a new rule proposal goes through, that decision could be a lot easier and not cost anyone anything. The Atlantic Coast Conference has submitted a proposal to allow all players to participate in any four games without losing a redshirt, the designated term for a player who practices with the team but does not participate in game competition, thus preserving a season of playing eligibility. The proposal will be voted on by the NCAA Division I Council in April. If passed, it could go into effect as early as this fall but would not be retroactive to past seasons.
So, no it wouldn’t give Pickett back another year of eligibility, but this is a very exciting thought going forward.
Whether it is a late season injury to a player at a thin position (think cornerback in 2016); wanting to see what a kid can do in the actual game when there is a question; or simply wanting to get him some experience for the future.
There’s no guarantee it will pass or that it will be exactly this rule, but it has support of several conferences, the coaches and even the students.
Big 12 commissioner and NCAA Football Oversight Committee chair Bob Bowlsby told The Athletic that the proposal still needs to be “debated, modified and massaged” before it’s voted on in April. The feedback process is ongoing, and amendments could come up.
“It’s hard to know what it might look like by the time it gets all the way through,” he said.
Coaches love the idea. Student-athletes voiced support in January at the NCAA convention. Some administrators also have come out in support, but some details could prolong the discussion.
Hard to imagine that some variation on this rule won’t come into being, but then, any bureaucracy has a way of slowing things down dramatically.
The other area is much broader in the NCAA spectrum. Transfers.
Graduate transfers aren’t going away no matter how much some coaches complain (and some fans when it happens with one of their kids). If anything, the freedom to transfer looks like it will expand.
The NCAA’s Division I Transfer Working Group met this week in Indianapolis and will spend the next few months seeking feedback on specific exceptions to the rule requiring all student-athletes to sit out a year after transferring.
According to the NCAA website, the exceptions under consideration include allowing student-athletes who meet specific, high-achieving academic benchmarks to play immediately after the first time they transfer during their college experience.
Also under consideration is allowing a prospective student-athlete who has signed a national letter of intent to transfer and play immediately if the head coach leaves the school of the student’s choice.
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The NCAA working group is aiming for a Division I Council vote on its final proposal in June, so it could be considered as a package with the notification-of-transfer legislation already in the Division I legislative cycle.
One other part of this whole thing under consideration is the elimination of schools being able to restrict or limit where a departing kid can transfer. One other thing that is in the proposed revisions is that a player that does transfer and has to sit out a year, would no longer lose a year of eligibility. Meaning, even a junior who did not graduate could transfer without losing his final year (Can you imagine what potentially could have happened to Pitt basketball for Stallings’ first year if that rule was in place?).
There have been submissions to allow open transfers on any coaching changes, but that is unlikely to happen.
All the rules may not be passed. I expect the redshirt stuff will take at least another year before some sort of change happens. But there will be significant changes to the transfer rules. Mainly because if the NCAA as a whole doesn’t do it, the power conferences will.
Perhaps the most intriguing reaction to the transfer topic came from Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, the chair of the Division I Football Oversight Committee. He made a point that could help explain why the NCAA has given the transfer working group an unusually flexible timetable to pass legislation. If the entire membership can get this done soon, the NCAA won’t have to worry about the Power Five conferences taking on transfer issues themselves under the autonomy umbrella and possibly adopting rules different from the non-power conferences — which could become a legal issue.
“(Transfers) is one of two areas that we, the autonomy conferences, reserved for our own consideration if we can’t get to the point where the whole association can come up with a plan,” Bowlsby told The Athletic this month. “There is some opportunity that, at least in the sport of football, we could do something among the five conferences. But so far, we’ve been trying to do it on a broad-scale basis. The Big 12 proposal is unpolished at this point, but I think it’s got some legs.”
The last thing the NCAA wants is the P5 conferences setting up their own transfer rules. Even worse would be if they limited it solely to football.
The transfer changes would both create a bit of chaos on basketball. Most kids sign their NLI before the coaching carousel gets going. Generally schools will release the kids on request, but they have some leverage and can at least convince them to meet with a new coach before going back on the market.
To say nothing of making schools, potentially a little less eager to fire coaches that are somewhere in the middle of not winning, but not at the bottom.
This would probably make little difference in the case of Kevin Stallings. But if you were, say, UConn and debating Kevin Ollie’s future. There would be a lot more scrutiny on which way to go.
