NCAA considers tying transfer eligibility to academic marks

hungan1

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From Associated Press Feb. 13, 2018:

"The NCAA is considering allowing athletes who are doing well in the classroom to transfer with immediate eligibility and permitting incoming freshmen to back out of a national letter of intent if there is a head coaching change.

The NCAA's Division I transfer working group concluded two days of meetings on Tuesday in Indianapolis. Justin Sell, the group chairman and athletic director at South Dakota State, said the group examined data on how transferring impacts academics as it develops concepts for rule reforms that could be presented to coaches, administrators and student-athletes for feedback.

The group will meet again in April and plans to have a model it can present to NCAA membership for comment. The goal is to present a proposal for the Board of Governors to consider for approval in June.

The NCAA would like to create uniformity in transfer rules, instead of rules that currently change from sport to sport and conference to conference. In some sports such as golf and volleyball, athletes already can use a one-time exception to transfer without sitting out a season at the new school. In basketball and football, they must sit out or request a waiver from the NCAA.

The working group has already made significant progress toward changing the transfer process from a permission to a notification model. An athlete would no longer need to be granted permission from a current coach to contact other schools about transferring. And schools could not prevent a transferring student from receiving financial aid, essentially blocking a transfer, or dictate where an athlete transfers.

The NCAA has also moved toward strengthening rules against tampering in the hope of preventing coaches from recruiting players under scholarship at other schools.

The last piece is possibly the most contentious: When can an athlete transfer and be immediately eligible?

"We've never had a model on the table that would allow someone to transfer and play immediately without anything tied to it," Sell said. "We also are not considering any model that has all the student-athletes have to sit out with no exceptions."

Noah Knight, a former University of Missouri-Kansas City basketball player who is on the working group, said student-athletes are not looking to create free agency, where athletes can transfer with no restrictions.

"But they do want a space where it could give them little bit of flexibility," Knight said.

Sell said the group discussed setting a benchmark grade-point average of 3.0 that would allow an athlete to transfer without sitting out a season at the new school.

"But the committee on academics is going to need to kind of help us figure out how the mark aligns with a graduation rate and some other pieces to that, too," Sell said.

The concept of allowing a one-time exception for athletes when the head coach of their teams change was also discussed by the working group. Big 12 representatives put forth a possible model that would allow all athletes to transfer with immediate eligibility after a head coaching change.

Notably, when the NCAA posted a news release about the transfer group's meeting it highlighted a more narrow version of that concept.

Currently, a recruit who signs a national letter of intent cannot break that agreement without losing a year of eligibility. The group wants to consider changing that to allow the athlete to switch schools if a coaching change is made after the NLI is signed."

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Follow Ralph D. Russo www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

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http://www.espn.com/espn/wire?section=ncf&id=22422986
 

From Associated Press Feb. 13, 2018:

"Currently, a recruit who signs a national letter of intent cannot break that agreement without losing a year of eligibility. The group wants to consider changing that to allow the athlete to switch schools if a coaching change is made after the NLI is signed."

I think especially with the early signing period this should be implemented for incoming freshmen. Imagine if you signed with Arizona in December and Rich Rod gets fired in early January. Those kids should be able to rescind their NLI and look elsewhere. And frankly, that may benefit the new coach, as they won't be saddled with players that don't fit their system.
 

I like the idea of giving students who only signed but haven't enrolled some movement if a coach leaves.... but man some schools could lose a big chunk of a class in some cases. That could be a big hit to a program's stability. I'm all for giving the students as much as possible generally but sometimes I think these propositions are more about pushing even more competition for coach's salaries as schools will be afraid to take a big hit sometimes...
 

I can understand if a coach is fired that the kids that he signed are given the opportunity to transfer.

The down side to this type of freedom of movement is it may be open to corruption. Teams like the Gophers might become the minor league for the top tier P5 schools.

How do you police poaching? Big name schools surreptitiously going about poaching other school's players.

What is to prevent an upper tier program from deliberately "stashing" a player at another school? Let's say Super Program A do not have an opening on their roster. They tell a kid to go sign with College B for a year. Then transfer the following year when they have a guaranteed opening. And they don't have to sit out a year.
 

Tying it to academic performance. That's what they been saying all along.
 


Being able to back out of NLI's would certainly put pressure on AD's to make coaching decisions right after the end of the season. If an athlete is interested in a school involved in a coaching change they could always pass on the early signing period. Another question will be, does it apply only to the HC or are other coaching changes covered?, a lot of recruits build relationships with their recruiter or position coach.
 

It should be tied to the head coach leaving or getting fired.

Imagine the disaster to some programs if you cannot have a semblance of stability because you may lose your entire core group of players when a position coach leaves.
 




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