It's a slow news summer, but recently the NCAA released new eligibility rules and they're quite interested and much-needed. Now players get five season of eligibility, period. The clock starts ticking with one of the following:
- enrolling in college full-time (including juco)
- the start of the academic year immediately following the athlete's 19th birthday, if born before Sept 1st
From either of those points (whichever occurs first), the athlete is on the clock. This immediately has some impact. Prep school can now use up a year of eligibility based on the birthday rule. The whole juco -> redshirt path is also obsolete. I think we'll see a good number of freshmen being played now in D1, because redshirt years are also no longer a factor.
I took a peek at our roster this morning, and this has some good effects on our team. It's important to note that players who exhausted their eligibility last year are still done, but several true-senior players on our team will be able to come back the season after next:
- Ayden Green
- Jacquez White
- Kaleb Spencer
- Jordan Bass
- Sherrod Covil, Jr.
That is some solid impact, and James Franklin will be able to field a more veteran team in his second year than we initially thought. That's pretty cool. I'm especially excited about Green gaining an additional season, as he has seemed talented but hasn't had the breakout season that we have hoped for yet. This buys him more time and experience.
Also cool is that Luke Reynolds (true junior) will now be able to play three season for us. He was an absolute dog in the spring game, so if he can keep up that level of play then look out world.
As far as downsides go, the only one that sticks out to me is that we might see even more freshmen transferring across D1 now if they aren't getting minutes or cracking depth charts their first year, because they can no longer be stashed as a redshirt and will be actively burning eligibility. Yippee.
Overall though, I'm a big fan of this rule change and it was much-needed. Goodbye freakazoid super-super-super seniors, we will not miss you.
