NCAA considering change to 5 years of eligibility

Does the NFL actually have an “age restriction”? Says to enter the draft one must be 3 years out of high school OR used their college eligibility. The youngest player in the NFL this year was 20. But theoretically a younger person could be draft eligible if they fulfilled those requirements by graduating high school even younger.

Lots of jobs require X# years experience and have degree requirements. Is the brain trust now saying employers requiring previous experience should be illegal? If the supposed issue is the “restraint on trade”, instead of looking at age or experience minimums the better issue for that is the concept of having a draft at all! Rookies don’t get to negotiate and top picks go to the worst teams in the league. A “free market” would have all the top rookies going to big market teams of their choosing. Hell, a “league” is basically a bunch of owners colluding together to divide up revenues. There are reasons the sports leagues have historically needed anti-trust exemptions, many things about them would be obviously illegal in “normal” industries (drafts, roster limits, revenue sharing, the fact the owners get to “vote” on when to allow a new competing franchise in, etc). Sports is kind of a unique thing in that regard, but in sports it kind of works because it actually drives competition on the fields and gives mid-market teams an avenue to compete.

 

Looks like they are being proactive to avoid rulings against them with the current shift in the courts. Tax status need to get more in line with taxable business to reflect the current culture.

 

I fully expect at some point academic participation will not be required. Most of them have no interest in scrool anyway, nor would they qualify and get in as a regular student. I also expect eventually eligibility to play college football will be open ended, i.e. as long as they want to play. Don’t like either, but at least it would stick it to the no fun league, a really good thing.

 

The WR was Mike Williams from USC. But both him and Clarett tried to sue the NFL to get around the age restriction. They briefly won but then lost on appeal.

 

The courts/NCAA already sided with players coming from Junior Colleges regarding their eligibility clock not starting when they play in JC. So now you are seeing alot of players whose eligibility would've run out get to play another year of NCAA sports. The Vanderbilt QB was the player who sued the NCAA and won. He would not have been able to play next year because he went to JC. Now is essentially a 6th year senior and will play next year.

 

None of it makes much sense. At least this ruling was just that JC doesn’t count, as opposed to “unlimited eligibility” which would be an entirely different level of stupidity. They really are trying to just straight up litigate college football into a minor league pro football league.

I get why players want to get paid. I just don’t get why anyone else would want that whole arrangement or be interested in it. Nobody watches the G league championship or the AAA baseball playoffs. Are people gonna watch 25-30 year old non students play minor league football because they are wearing the logos college football used to wear? Makes no sense.

 

5 years would be great as college programs would no longer have to sit anyone or limit the games they played in. Get freshman game snaps early or play on special teams when they are ready.

 

It has always been that way. Those guys couldn't gain entrance to the university any other way.

 

Maurice Clarrett

 

This guy has a great blueprint now to take advantage of this ruling.

Go to JC for 2 years- get bigger, faster, stronger
Redshirt for 1 year at a D1

You are now 20-21 with 4 yrs of eligibility.

Kent Padgett on Instagram: "Boys here’s the blueprint‼️ 26 year old seniors arent going anywhere anytime soon thanks to the new Diego Pavia JUCO Ncaa ruling #diegopavia #ncaa #juco #CollegeFootball #transferportal"

 

In my book there is already an asterisk on any records since they are often based on season not per game. The number of games has increased by 20-25% or more and they didn't count bowl games until after 2002.

The absurdity of Jeanty (14 games) in the same conversation as Sanders (11, bowl didn't count) is just a symptom of the need to sensationalize everything for clicks.

And get off my lawn.......

 

Nobody who's going pro and majoring in football needs more than three years of eligibility. I like the idea because it will help everyone else, the guys who are never going to get an NFL paycheck and who aren't going to get a lot of NIL money, either. It'll even help those who are willing to put in the extra effort earn masters degrees while playing sports.

 

All could go to a JUCO, but where is the money in that? The Universities and the NCAA are complicit in allowing students that couldn't get into college X without special rules for athletes so those same college's can be competitive and make some green. I would bet that many scholarship athletes wouldn't be accepted into the University that they compete for without special admission benefits. It has been a really disgusting trade-off for many years if you sit back and think about the true purpose of higher education.

 

I'm curious as to who you believe "they" are. Here's who I think:

I think you are probably on to something. The above reason is why the players are trying to contort the situation to keep the colleges involved while essentially becoming pro athletes and the colleges running a pro league.....otherwise they don't get paid and the player agents and lawyers don't get paid. Follow the Benjamins and it becomes obvious why they are attempting to make sure the colleges are forced to be involved (of course prying that revenue stream out of the colleges hands is a lot of why we find ourselves in this current pickle).

 

This whole thing is NCAAF being turned into the NFL d-league so they can avoid Anthony Richardson and similar busts, but without taking any financial risks.

It's by design, use NCAAFs built in fan base rather than risk setting up another failed league. The question is where do the fans come from in 20 years when the teams aren't really university related but also aren't good enough to be top level professionals? Who knows, especially given the lack of younger fans already, but the executives making these decisions will have long since cashed out.

 

Very few are what we would consider true students. Many have curriculum suited to keep them eligible. Maybe the ivy league are the closest to a true student athlete and even those guys probably get special consideration.

 

It was absolutely by design, right up until NIL. Now you have guys delaying the NFL more, which hurts their talent pool, and eventually if they let them stay five or 6 or however many years they are in school; the nfl won’t be getting that talent for nearly as Long an NFL career. Heck. We may start to see scenarios where guys make 10 or 20 million or more in college and then just retire. Why risk the injury against bigger faster stronger guys when you’re already set for life? Especially if you’ve played for 6 years or whatever?

 

They most certainly do. Not at the same level ours do, but I’m sure the kids who had to go through the normal process would say “same difference”.

 

Exactly

Lots of collegiate Football programs will be shuttered or revert to club sports. I suspect a huge contraction in the sport in the next 10 years and a huge decrease in competitiveness between conferences.

 

You really think 19 year olds who have been dreaming of playing in the NFL for their entire lives are going to stay in semi pro instead of go for that first round money? The good players are currently sitting out bowl games while actively receiving pay for play contracts. It's not and never was name, image and likeness. That's just a name to make the sales pitch sound better as saying pay for play isn't usually taken well.

Name, image and likeness would have been great for NCAAF. Let student athletes profit off of advertising and merchandise deals. Win win for the student and school in many cases. This is 100% by design to use NCAAFs as NFL d-league without risk or needing to do any work to build it.