The NCAA's Division I board of directors voted on Friday to grant fall sports athletes, which includes football players, a blanket waiver that will have a significant impact on rosters in future seasons.
Fall sports athletes will be granted an extra year of eligibility, and they'll be allowed an extra year to complete it — regardless of what happens to the current season and how much they play during it.
Let's use Ohio State as an example. Zach Harrison is a sophomore defensive end expected to be one of the Buckeyes' rising stars. If the Big Ten plays its spring season, Harrison could play every game and pile up as many sacks as he wants, yet still be considered a sophomore again when the Buckeyes open the new season in September, 2021.
Current seniors who choose another season will not count against their team's scholarship limits in the 2021-22 school year.
The move, while well-intentioned, has both its pros and cons.
Pro: Athletes will be made whole for a partially — or completely — lost year.
This has been a lousy year to be a college student, and especially one who picked a school to play four years of a sport. Even though most leagues and sports have pushed back the fall season with hopes of playing again in the spring, there certainly are no guarantees that spring will be any better with regard to the coronavirus.
For a sport like soccer, which plays games during both fall and spring, athletes already lost more than half of a normal year. The waiver allows for a make-up to anyone who wants it.
Con: Changes to scholarship limits were narrow.
Seniors are allowed back penalty-free, but the rest of the roster still counts against scholarship limits, which is 85 scholarships in football. If everyone gets frozen into their current year of eligibility, plus a new class of freshmen start in the fall, players will get squeezed out as programs attempt to stay within the limits.
Con: Every school won't be on board.
As we saw when this happened with spring sports, not every school will welcome back everyone. Wisconsin, among others, did not bring back its spring sports seniors. Coaches still have license to pull scholarships, and schools at lower levels who are already financially leveraged will say they can't afford to add another six-figure expenditure to grant-in-aid.
Pro: The graduate transfer rule offers the players protection.
Anyone with a degree is allowed to do as they please, and the waiver will offer added incentive to graduate now. A redshirt junior who isn't playing to their liking, sees a coaching change, or just wants something new can play in 2020-21, can graduate and play two years somewhere else if they want. There will be a large group of older players with mobility and an open market to use it.
Con: Future recruits could pay some of the price.
Due to the aforementioned scholarship limits, teams must be cautious in future recruiting cycles. Let's say a football team currently using 85 scholarships aimed to sign 22 recruits next year. Even if seniors don't count against limits, what happens after the eligibility freeze? Do they aim to sign only 17 or 18? It will vary by school, but it's very possible individual programs opt to sign fewer high-school players as a result.
Pro: Teams with roster issues could be back to full strength in one year.
Programs that have been ransacked by mismanagement and attrition — Bowling Green, Kansas, and Akron come to mind — have a path to get back some of their lost depth. Because they can only add 25 new players a year, getting out of roster trouble can take years once a team gets behind the 8-ball. Now that everyone is frozen, returning to 85 scholarship players, or at least close to it, could be as simple as adding the next recruiting class.
First Published August 23, 2020, 11:28 p.m.
